Effective Communication and Planning as a Key Tools for a Nurse Leader

Planning/Budgeting

The budget directly reflects what is important to the facility and helps us create a plan to reach the outcomes the facility wants to achieve. The budget needs to meet the current and established needs but also needs to accommodate unforeseen changes. A budget should be founded on clear, written hospital and department goals and should be translated into a formal, quantitative expression of management’s plans. The total budget for the unit is five million dollars. The budget includes operational funds and capital funds.

Operational funds are managed by the nurse manager and the Clinical Operations Director.

The nurse manager oversees purchases of less than five thousand dollars. These operational funds go towards staff salaries, office supplies, linen, coffee materials, painting, repairs, equipment, periodicals, drug books, continuing education, etc. The capital fund is hospital-based. Any purchase over five thousand dollars is managed by the vice president and president. Quality improvement has a significant impact on the budget and planning because it revolves around patient safety. If there is evidence-based data showing the need for improvement in certain areas, then the operating budget is adjusted in order to meet those needs. If an immediate necessary change is identified, the hospital will be in charge of allocating funds for this change. Hospital-wide funds come from the capital budget.

Communication/Delegation

Effective communication and successful delegation are key tools for a nurse leader. On the unit, the skills utilized include fairness, relationship building, mentoring, and networking. Other important aspects are implemented to motivate the workforce on the unit. These implementations include continuous learning, email, meetings, and other unit leader collaboration. According to the unit leader, empathy is also a key factor in the effective and successful delegation. Poor delegation can result in missed care for patients. The most common types of missed care are ambulating and feeding patients on time, doing mouth care, and attending interdisciplinary care conferences.

Conclusion

The most important statement of advice that this nurse leader had to offer to new nurse leaders is to know who you are and why you want to be a leader. Knowing your true self provides necessary insight that will aid you in identifying your own reactions and responses to other people. Nursing and nurse leadership can be mentally stressful and challenging; if you don’t know who you are, you will question every action you take and every decision you make. New nurse leaders must concentrate on developing transformational leadership skills while diminishing negative leadership styles. Evolving in nurse leadership, experience, and maturity has led to her becoming more comfortable as a nurse leader. Nursing leadership constantly changes in its demands. A nurse leader must be a proficient leader that is able to keep up with the growing field of healthcare. Nursing leadership demands an immense amount of work to be put in, but the reward that is put out is even greater.

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