Essay Sample on Nurse Managers: Vital Role in Improving Patient Outcomes

Introduction

Various studies have been conducted to indicate the relationship between the nurse's services, and patient health outcomes. Nurses play a significant role in the healthcare ecosystem to improve patient safety. Nurse's skills help in preventing patient's misdiagnosis or medication errors. Nurse services also can reduce the risk of patient falls and ensure that the medications are followed to improve patient outcomes. Nurse Managers play a vital role in managing the nurses within a team so that they can deliver the healthcare services effectively and efficiently to the patients. Understanding of self is a critical stage in managing emotions as often are times when the social scenes in the nursing profession environment stir different emotions that can negatively affect their attitude and productivity. Nurses with strong emotional intelligence have high chances of enhancing patient safety since they can enhance team work leading to reduced errors at work (Beauvais, Brady, O'Shea & Griffin, 2011).

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According to this research, emotional intelligence is one of the basic skills that a nurse manager needs to master since it has a positive impact on the safety of the patients. A nurse with a strong EI ensure that there is good communication among a team of nurses providing health care to the patients. Nurse's strong emotional intelligence has a positive influence on the nurse's self-compassion, less burn out, strong ethical behavior, positive work attitude, and more excellent teamwork. Nurse Managers with strong emotional intelligence exhibit strong characters concerning executing their roles and inspiring the nurse's team to great teamwork and motivation at work (Somayeh & Shayesteh 2017). The patient safety improves when nurses are able to handle work pressures and deliver their services to the patients.

Poor communication and feelings of burn out may result from poor leadership, especially in cases where the nurse manager has low levels of EI (Kutash, 2015). Work pressures are bound to emerge, and the nurse manager need to effectively manage the emotions that accompany a demanding work environment to help minimize nursing mistakes. It is crucial to observe that when nurses work under pressure and burn out due to the negative emotions spilled over from their managers nursing mistakes are bound to happen in the care facilities (Major, 2016). The results is suppressed patient outcomes and exposure of the patient to more safety risks. Poor EI on the side of nurse managers is likely to result in nurses regular work conflicts which expose the patients to safety issues at work such as the risk of hospital falls (Codier, 2012).

Another study indicated that there is a high correlation between patient safety and positive health outcomes with increased nurse manager's self-awareness and emotion intelligence (Beauvais & et al. 2011). The results indicated individuals such as nurses who are under pressure due to high demands at the workplace are advantaged if they have strong sense and capability of emotion regulation. Nurse's behavior directly affects the patients since they are in daily contact providing care at the hospital beds to the patient. A good sense of emotional intelligence is a requisite for patient-centered care and culture in the hospital. The patient's in hospitals with nurse managers who hold high EI are likely to benefit from quality care from nurses who are not stressed but motivated in their work (Heffernan & et al. 2010). Nurses who understand themselves better are able to manage their emotions when facing stressful work situations, which eventually help the patients to receive better-specialized care and reduce hospital readmissions (Adams & Iseler, 2014).

Nurses Emotional Intelligence and Safety

Emotional intelligence has been defined as social skills and competencies that influence how one relates to others and manage their emotions in the process of social interactions (Kutash, 2015). The nurse manager emotional intelligence has been positively associated with higher patient satisfaction and safety. Patient satisfaction improves the coordination and cooperation between the patient and nurses, which results in better health outcomes. The attitudes of patients with regard to the perception of the quality of care they receive from the nurses determine the kind of nurse-patient relationship and quality of care (Codier & Codier, 2015). The nurse's burnout reduces when the nurse managers have emotional intelligence resilience since they are more likely to ease the pressure mounted on nurses due to challenges that often crop up in the challenging healthcare service provision environment (Prezerakos, 2018).

Emotional intelligence is critical to the good functioning of nurses as it contributes to the successful operation of coordinated patient care (Faguy, 2012). However, if the nurses are not well trained on how to manage these variety of emotions, it may result in poor healthcare outcomes. Negative emotions may overwhelm nurses as they operate in an environment that is stressful and encounter several traumatizing experiences with the patients they handle daily (Spano-Szekely & et al. 2016). Some nurse leaders may transfer leadership pressures and demands that resonate into negative emotions into their juniors in the team, which result in poor work relations and communication breakdown. The suggestion is that it is critical to improving the nurse emotional and social skills at all levels so that they will be better equipped to manage emotions and attitudes (Delpasand & et al. 2011).

Hospital nurse managers have a great role to play as the nursing practice evolves. Research studies have explored the nurse manager's emotional intelligence and that of the teams they lead and found a positive and statistically significant relationship (Rego, Godinho, McQueen & Cunha, 2010). The nurse managers EI has a significant impact on patient satisfaction and safety as it facilitates in creating a cohesive team anchored on trust, effective communication, and teamwork. The teams are essential to the patient care an also aid in improving the health outcomes (Littlejohn, 2012). A positive attitude of the patients towards the nurses, providing them with healthcare improves when the team is emotionally resilient and have positive attitudes owing to a good relationship with the managers and colleagues. It becomes easy to transfer the same attitudes in their service to the patients translating to better healthcare delivery and safety of patients (Akerjordet & Severinsson, 2010).

Emotional intelligence among the nurse leaders helps them to be aware of self and others to handle their emotions so that it does not affect others in the process. EI helps the individual be compassionate about others. It helps the nurses to collaborate, influence, and communicate effectively to others (Powell, Mabry & Mixer, 2015). The levels of anger and mistrust are reduced when people engaged in such relationships understand each other (Karim & et al. 2014). It helps the nurse and patient relationship to be good, resulting in working as a team for maximum delivery. There is always room for improvement as each understands the goals perfectly, and there is no blame game (Basogul & Ozgur, 2016).

Having emotional intelligence distinguishes between successful organizations that provide the best healthcare with others. It reduces hospital readmissions, medication errors, and motivates the nurses at work. The nurses engage in creative solutions to handle the challenges thrown in their way. They get it easy to communicate and create an environment of commitment and resilience in their duties, which result in great care (Dusseldorp, Meijel & Derksen, 2011).

References

Adams, K. L., & Iseler, J. I. (2014). The relationship of bedside nurses' emotional intelligence with quality of care. Journal of Nursing Care Quality, 29(2), 174-181.

Akerjordet, K., & Severinsson, E. (2010). The state of the science of emotional intelligence related to nursing leadership: an integrative review. Journal of Nursing Management, 18(4), 363-382.

Basogul, C., & Ozgur, G. (2016). Role of emotional intelligence in conflict management strategies of nurses. Asian nursing research, 10(3), 228-233.

Beauvais, A. M., Brady, N., O'Shea, E. R., & Griffin, M. T. Q. (2011). Emotional intelligence and nursing performance among nursing students. Nurse education today, 31(4), 396-401.

Codier, E. (2012). Emotional intelligence: Why walking the talk transforms nursing care. American Nurse Today, 7(4), 3-7.

Codier, E., & Codier, D. (2015). A model for the role of emotional intelligence in patient safety. Asia-Pacific journal of oncology nursing, 2(2), 112.

Delpasand, M., Nasiripoor, A. A., Raiisi, P., & Shahabi, M. (2011). The relationship between emotional intelligence and occupational burnout among nurses in critical care units. Iranian journal of critical care nursing, 4(2), 79-86.

Faguy, K. (2012). Emotional intelligence in health care. Radiologic technology, 83(3), 237-253.

Heffernan, M., Quinn Griffin, M. T., McNulty, S. R., & Fitzpatrick, J. J. (2010). Selfcompassion and emotional intelligence in nurses. International journal of nursing practice, 16(4), 366-373.

Karimi, L., Leggat, S. G., Donohue, L., Farrell, G., & Couper, G. E. (2014). Emotional rescue: The role of emotional intelligence and emotional labor on wellbeing and jobstress among community nurses. Journal of advanced nursing, 70(1), 176-186.

Kutash, M. (2015). The Relationship between Nurses' Emotional Intelligence and Patient Outcomes.

Kutash, M. (2015). The Relationship between Nurses' Emotional Intelligence and Patient Outcomes.

Littlejohn, P. (2012). The missing link: using emotional intelligence to reduce workplace stress and workplace violence in our nursing and other health care professions. Journal of Professional Nursing, 28(6), 360-368.

Major, M. M. (2016). The Effect of Emotionally Intelligent Relationships on Patient Satisfaction with Nursing Care. Benedictine University.

Powell, K. R., Mabry, J. L., & Mixer, S. J. (2015). Emotional intelligence: A critical evaluation of the literature with implications for mental health nursing leadership. Issues in mental health nursing, 36(5), 346-356.

Prezerakos, P. E. (2018). Nurse Managers' Emotional Intelligence and Effective Leadership: A Review of the Current Evidence. The open nursing journal, 12, 86.

Rego, A., Godinho, L., McQueen, A., & Cunha, M. P. (2010). Emotional intelligence and caring behaviour in nursing. The Service Industries Journal, 30(9), 1419-1437.

Somayeh R., Shayesteh S. (2017). A Study of the Relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Patient Safety Culture among Emergency Nurses in Selected Hospitals in Shiraz in 2017. Journal of Research in Medical and Dental Sciences 2018, Volume 6, Issue 2, Page No: 276-283

Spano-Szekely, L., Griffin, M. T. Q., Clavelle, J., & Fitzpatrick, J. J. (2016). Emotional intelligence and transformational leadership in nurse managers. Journal of Nursing Administration, 46(2), 101-108.

Van Dusseldorp, L. R., van Meijel, B. K., & Derksen, J. J. (2011). Emotional intelligence of mental health nurses. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 20(34), 555-562.