Week 8 Portfolio: Leadership Development Tool Leadership and management case studies provide complex, realistic situations confronting health care today affording opportunities for analyzing multidimensional problems and determining appropriate responses (“Overview,” 2009). The purpose of this paper is to design a leadership development exercise identifying a work issue applicable for direct care staff to analyze and solve. I will describe themes, case highlights, and overt examples documenting the existence of the issue. A brief case study will communicate the issue the group will explore, provide details, and relevant information including concrete examples. Peer-reviewed journal article abstracts will provide a theoretical foundation for the course of action/interventions. Finally, I will identify learning outcomes and how the group members might apply the knowledge gained into their daily practice. Identified Work Issue and Themes The shift toward promoting wellness while preventing illness, in the current health care delivery system, supports the nurses' endeavor for providing safe, quality patient care achieving excellence in patient outcomes. Maintaining wellness in our patient population living with chronic disease is a challenging issue of today since chronic illness accounts for more than 75% of the nation's health care budget (Apold, 2012). With 25.8 million Americans diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes (T2DM), patient compliance for diabetes management is a quality and safety issue today (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2011). The vulnerable patient population served by ABC Community Health Clinic embraces a low socioeconomic community, often individuals live in shelters, compounded by mental illness. 78 The direct-care RNs' task involves identifying barriers to T2DM compliance and implementing quality improvement strategies for T2DM management within the identified at risk population. The registered nurse (RN) is a critical component of the health care team for promoting wellness in the chronic illness population. Laughlin and Beisel (2010) discussed the influence of the RN on outcomes of patients living with chronic illness. One pilot study evaluated the effectiveness of the RN working with noncompliant T2DM patients. The results concluded that 48% of patients working with an RN on T2DM management successfully achieved the targeted Hg A1C, less than or equal to 7% over a six month period while only 20% met this target without the assistance of the RN (Laughlin & Beisel, 2010)
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