Discuss how nurse leaders serve as advocates for their employees. Describe how advocacy for employees affects
patient care and outcomes.
Introduction
Nurse leaders advocate for their employees by requiring the management of health
facilities and organizations to take appropriate measures in ensuring safe workplace environment
that promotes the productivity of individual nursing staff (Murphy, 2009, p 39). Nurse leaders
advocate for their subordinates by ensuring better compensation and reward system that fair
according to the performance output of each nurse (Lee, Hamelin & Daugherty, 2019, p 28). In
addition, nurse leaders are tasked with job scheduling and advocate for the needs of nursing staff
by setting appropriate nursing workloads that avoids stress and burnout among nurses.
Nurse leaders advocate for continuous improvement in job coordination and workflow
thus ensuring their employees accomplish the allocated tasks within time. Nurse leaders are
tasked with advocating for routine training and more career development opportunities for nurses
(Murphy, 2009, p 40). In addition, it is the nurse leader who is expected to advocate for
advanced and better working equipments and tools that offer safety and minimize the exposure to
infections to nurses while attending to patients with communicable diseases.
Nurse leaders are advocates and facilitators of care and take an active role in ensuring
that concerns and grievances raised by their employees are addressed by the management. In this
case, the nurse leaders will champion for proper nurse staffing ratio and work-life balance that is
important to overcoming job-related stress and frustrations at the workplace (Lee, Hamelin &
Daugherty, 2019, p 33). Nurse leaders portray an accurate picture of nursing work, the
complexity of work, and explain the hard clinical judgments that employees are expected to
make in their work.
A nurse leader advocates for cordial working and reporting relationships that promote
interprofessional collaboration and facilitate shared decision making in working teams. In this
case, the nurse leader is tasked with implementing open communication channels and
appropriate structures that support team collaboration (Murphy, 2009, p 43).
The advocacy for employees is beneficial to patient care and outcomes since it leads to
better work coordination and high nursing care. Advocacy role of nurse leaders is linked with
patient-centered care that considers the unique health care and nursing needs of each patient.
Advocacy by nurse leaders facilitates patient engagement and better understanding of patient
needs by the nurses (Lee, Hamelin & Daugherty, 2019, p 33). In addition, the advocacy activities
facilitate safe work environment that eliminates readmission of patients due to harm and injuries
sustained at the health facilities. In conclusion, the advocacy is geared at attaining excellent
patient outcomes that ensure high patient satisfaction with the quality of nursing care offered by
the nurses (Murphy, 2009, p 44).
References:
Lee, E., Hamelin, T & Daugherty, J. (2019). ‘Reimagine health care leadership, challenges, and
opportunities in the 21 st century, Journal of periAnesthesia Nursing, 34 (1), 27-38.
Murphy, S. (2009). ‘Nurse leaders as stewards: the beginning of change, The Open nursing
journal, 3 (1), 39-44.