Introduction
Considerably, the primary rationale for nursing regulation is to ensure that clients receive safe and quality services from healthcare practitioners. The primary responsibilities of the nurse managers are controlling the financial and human resources and sustaining a secure surrounding for the patients. In addition, they maintain quality of care and standards and ensure functional correlation with the staff members. Due to their high levels of competency and work knowledge, the nurse managers supervise the unlicensed and registered nurses in a medical facility to ensure they deliver outstanding care to the clients. Nurse managers must observe ethical principles, including integrity, beneficence, privacy, justice, independence, and nonmaleficence when handling patients to make reputable decisions and not destroy the company’s image (Gunawan et al., 2018). However, due to the increasingly varied needs in healthcare centers, nurse managers must understand the corporate, nursing, and clinical components to ensure the effective delivery of quality care services. It is essential to discuss healthcare policies, regulatory agencies, and health policies that may impact the decision-making of the interviewed nurse manager, Mr. Wells.
The Role of the Nurse Manager
During his nursing career, Mr. Wells has elaborate nursing experience as he has worked in seven hospitals and tutored novice nurses. He reports having engaged in multiple functionalities, including setting work schedules, supervising subordinates in clinical settings or medical centers, and making personal, budgetary, and management decisions. Mr. Wells agrees with Warshawsky and Cramer (2019) that nurse managers must execute federal and state regulatory guidelines for victim security and educate subordinates regarding the transformation of laws and how they affect care delivery. Notably, Mr. Wells indicated that he counsels patients at their houses and operates multiple community programs and home-based grounded initiatives.
Mr. Wells ensures all the nursing resources, such as surgical tools, are available and provides adequate working conditions for the staff to deliver enhanced victim care. Mr. Wells coordinates bi-weekly meetings with the subordinates to ensure special allocation of duties, mainly during work shifts, to enable service delivery to patients without negligence. Nurse managers must apply emerging nursing methodologies to care delivery and showcase leadership skills as they work with diverse people (Warshawsky & Cramer, 2019). Mr. Wells acknowledges that he recruits and trains nurses, maintains the medical center’s records, and treats and diagnoses clients. He reported that enhancing staff working conditions and delivering quality care to patients escalates contentment levels, thus maintaining organizational reputation.
Summary of Interview Database
Mr. Wells acknowledges that being a nurse manager requires extensive work knowledge and personality, embracing federal regulations, and making crucial decisions. During the interview, Mr. Wells extensively shared the roles of a nurse manager and pinpointed core external elements impacting decision-making, including regulatory agencies and health policies. He acknowledged that nurse managers must observe ethical principles such as integrity and justice and be decisive and resourceful, as other healthcare practitioners depend on their proficiency to deliver quality patient care. Mr. Wells admitted that one should be willing to learn from coworkers and engage all the stakeholders to implement multiple duties effectively. During the interview, Mr. Wells openly and transparently answered 20 queries related to external components impacting the nurse manager’s decision-making. He highly cooperated with the interviewer during the discussion by not disrupting him.
Furthermore, since the questions were divided into subsections, additional questions were asked so that Mr. Wells could clarify his answers regarding the external factors affecting the nurse manager’s decision-making. Even though some queries were challenging, Mr. Wells requested reframing to enable him to reflect and provide detailed responses. However, contrasted to other external elements, he admitted that regulatory requirements have significantly affected his capability to make reputable decisions in the healthcare facility. Mr. Wells had extensive knowledge of how healthcare policies, regulatory agencies, and health policies influence nurse managers’ decision-making.
Viewpoints Concerning External Factors
Health Policy
To a great extent, health policy is a set of overarching guidelines and objectives that dictate the accessibility and delivery of care. The nurse managers help shape health policies by proposing new approaches grounded on the demands encountered in nursing practice, assessing available principles, and identifying missing elements, inefficiencies, and opportunities to enhance the affordability and delivery of care. Healthcare practitioners must meet with lobbyists, administrators, and policymakers to offer clinical insight into policy recommendations (Efendi et al., 2019). Mr. Wells acknowledged that the health policy issue substantially impacted his decision-making. Mr. Wells relied on his education and knowledge to apply effective policies in diverse areas to enhance primary care among patients.
Healthcare Financing
Health financing is a primary function of the healthcare system that ensures progress toward universal health coverage by enhancing monetary protection and improving service delivery. Most medical facilities do not receive an adequate budgetary allocation from the government, hindering them from developing and improving the quality of service. The primary functions of healthcare financing include the purchase of interventions, resource pooling, and revenue generation (Rostampour & Nosratnejad, 2020). Mr. Wells admitted that even though he makes decisions regarding allocating monetary resources, the available budget does not meet all demands. For example, Mr. Wells indicated that he faces challenges when making choices regarding introducing new care methods or improving hospital research and development, which require additional costs. However, nurse managers must work with health policy stakeholders and engage investors and sponsors to ensure quality care is provided in hospitals.
Regulatory Requirements
Most healthcare facilities face the obstacle of having a shortage of healthcare workforce. Nurse managers must observe local, state, and federal health prerequisites and standards to minimize negligence and medical errors (Warshawsky & Cramer, 2019). However, the existence of laws deters healthcare practitioners from making crucial decisions, as they must manifest sympathy while complying with specific regulations. Mr. Wells admitted that a registered nurse was on sick leave one day, and he authorized a novice nurse to offer injections and prescribe some medications to the patient. Even though the administrative and statutory laws prohibit such actions, Mr. Wells knew that deviating from the norm would ensure that the victim receives the much-needed care. Nevertheless, Mr. Wells acknowledged that the availability of agency regulations might deter the development and implementation of care programs and nursing initiatives even though they help make decisions that reduce intentional repercussions to the clients.
Conclusion
By contrasting Mr. Well’s responses and the available past studies, it is evident that nurse managers’ decisions are highly impacted by external factors, including regulatory, health policy, and financing prerequisite concerns. Mr. Wells effectively and elaborately answered all the questions, offering insights into how external elements impact quality care delivery. The nurse managers perform diverse duties, such as sustaining a secure surrounding for the patients, controlling the financial and human resources, and ensuring functional relationships with the subordinates.
References
Efendi, F., Kurniati, A., Bushy, A., & Gunawan, J. (2019). Concept analysis of nurse retention.Nursing & Health Sciences, 21(4), 422-427.
Gunawan, J., Aungsuroch, Y., & Fisher, M. L. (2018). Factors contributing to managerial competence of first‐line nurse managers: A systematic review. International Journal of Nursing Practice, 24(1), e12611.
Rostampour, M., & Nosratnejad, S. (2020). A systematic review of equity in healthcare financing in low-and middle-income countries. Value in Health Regional Issues, 21(5), 133-140.
Warshawsky, N., & Cramer, E. (2019). Describing nurse manager role preparation and competency: Findings from a national study. The Journal of Nursing Administration, 49(5), 249-255.