Succession planning for the future through an academic-practice partnership: a nursing administration master's program for emerging nurse leaders

Perceptions of future hospital management in Finland

PURPOSE

The purpose of this paper is to describe how Finnish experts perceive future (year 2030) hospital management and leadership.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH

A total of 33 experts participated in a three-round Argument Delphi process. Opposing views of management and leadership in 2030 were analyzed using inductive content analysis.

FINDINGS

The experts' perceptions were divided into two main categories: management and leadership orientation and future organization. Perceptions relating to management and leadership orientation were classified as relating to patient-centred, clinical dominance, professionally divided and management career options. Perceptions relating to future management and leadership organization were classified as representing shared, pair, team and the individual-centered leadership. The results highlighted the most distinctive issues raised by the participants.

RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS

This qualitative study was conducted in the context of Finnish healthcare according to the principles of the Argument Delphi Method. The panel consisted of high-level experts representing a diverse set of roles. However, as suggested in previous literature, these experts may not be the most astute in predicting the future development of hospital organizations.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

The findings can be used to develop and renew management and leadership training and management practices in hospitals.

SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS

The findings can be exploited in discussions, planning and decision making regarding future management and leadership in hospitals.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE

Only a few studies have investigated perceptions of future management in hospitals. This study adopted the Argument Delphi Method to identify distinct perceptions on the future orientation and organization of management and leadership in hospitals.

DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF A LEADERSHIP TRAINING PROGRAM FOR NURSES

ABSTRACT Objectives: To identify strategies that facilitate the development of leadership, correlating them with characterization of variables, and to create and validate a leadership training program for nurses. Method: developed in two phases. First: a cross-sectional study, performed in a general hospital in São Paulo, Brazil. The 70 nurses in the sample had at least three months of work experience in the institution. An instrument was used to collect data with characterization variables (gender, age, postgraduate, work shift and length of working career and contact with the theme of leadership) and collection of suggested strategies to develop more prominent leadership in the literature. Data were collected (February-April 2016) and analyzed descriptively. The Mann-Whitney and Kruskal Wallis tests were used to verify the correlations (p<0.05). Second phase: validation study of the program using the Delphi technique, from March to June 2017. Following the construction of the program, and considering the results obtained in the first phase, judges were selected with the following criteria: to be a nurse, researcher in leadership and nursing administration, with article publications in the last five years and teaching experience. Results: the strategies indicated in the first phase were: performance of experienced leaders as facilitators in the teaching-learning process (the highest scores were given by men; p=0.033) and establishment of partnerships between university and hospital (the largest choice was made by young nurses, p=0.019). In the second phase, a content validity index of 0.81 was reached, considered satisfactory. Conclusion: the program can be applied, and future studies will evaluate its effectiveness.

The Lived Experiences of Becoming First-line Nurse Managers: A Phenomenological Study

Background:

Designated roles of first-line nurse managers (FLNMs) are very complex, this study aimed to develop a deeper understanding of their meaningful lived experiences.

Materials and Methods:

This study employed a phenomenological study using semi-structured interviews with FLNMs (n = 7) at the General Hospital of Belitung, Indonesia. The data analysis was thematic.

Results:

Four major themes were identified from the analysis of textual data: Feeling extraordinary, the inability to do, desire to leave the unit, and influenced by work motivation. The findings of this study revealed the positive and negative experiences of becoming FLNMs. The positive experiences were related to the feeling challenged and extraordinary to deal with many roles in management and leadership. The negative experiences included personal conflict related to the desire to leave the unit, and feeling unable to manage. However, the works of FLNMs were influenced by internal and external motivation.

Conclusions:

This study better informs nurse executives to develop competence and performance of FLNMs, and keep their motivation by revising performance appraisal system.

The transformative power of social media: Considerations for practice and emerging leaders

Social media has transformed how people communicate both in non-healthcare and healthcare-specific settings. Due to social media's growing importance in society, it is likely that this form of communication will reshape various elements of how healthcare is conceptualized, managed, and delivered. To explore this emerging issue, this article describes the current use of social media in healthcare and examines the future digital transformation of healthcare. Finally, recommendations toward leveraging social media, and how emerging leaders can act as digital stewards to inform future healthcare environments, are also provided.

Use of Action Research in Nursing Education

Purpose. The purpose of this article is to describe action research in nursing education and to propose a definition of action research for providing guidelines for research proposals and criteria for assessing potential publications for nursing higher education. Methods. The first part of this project involved a search of the literature on action research in nursing higher education from 1994 to 2013. Searches were conducted in the CINAHL and MEDLINE databases. Applying the criteria identified, 80 publications were reviewed. The second part of the project involved a literature review of action research methodology from several disciplines to assist in assessing articles in this review. Results. This article summarizes the nursing higher education literature reviewed and provides processes and content related to four topic areas in nursing higher education. The descriptions assist researchers in learning more about the complexity of both the action research process and the varied outcomes. The literature review of action research in many disciplines along with the review of action research in higher education provided a framework for developing a nursing-education-centric definition of action research. Conclusions. Although guidelines for developing action research and criteria for publication are suggested, continued development of methods for synthesizing action research is recommended.