Social Determinants of Health Leadership

Nursing Leadership
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Nursing Leadership
From the definition, a nurse leader is a professional who is committed to representing the interests of the profession and works towards advancing it to greater levels. Nursing is an ever-dynamic and quite complex profession. Therefore, it requires leadership from critical thinkers and action-takers to guide the improvement of all areas of the practice. The role of a nurse leader in an organization is pivotal, not only to the immediate lives of the nurses but also to the health system as a whole. It is necessary to create a steady supply of energetic, visionary, and charismatic leaders who have the capacity and the mandate to support and propel the nursing practice forward.
One of the main tasks that a nurse leader is tasked with is ensuring the safe delivery of health care to patients. According to Healthy People (2020), the nurse leader must thus work across all sectors of the social determinants of health individually and as a whole to ensure access to health care. The US Department of Health and Human Services categorizes these social determinants of health into five domains: education, economic stability, social and community context, neighborhood and the built environment, and health and healthcare. This paper will discuss the relationship between health and healthcare and nursing, the importance of this area to nursing and healthcare, and how nursing leadership influences health and healthcare.
Relationship between nursing leadership and healthcare
To achieve the vision of a transformed health care system, the nurse leader's role cannot be understated. Nurses must have such leadership skills as critical thinking and courage to work in a team of other professionals to redesign and reform the health care system. Nursing practice is required to identify continually and developments that improve quality of care, based on evidence and research, and the application of these developments and improvements across the health care system.
Being a nurse leader requires the professional to take responsibility for problem areas within the work environment, create and implement solutions, track the efficacy of the solutions over time, and continually make readjustments to the solution plan to ensure that the organization's goals are met are achieved. The nurse leader is also actively involved in making decisions as they serve as patient advocates.
In the broader health arena, the nurse leader plays an essential role in making health policies. According to the Institute of Medicine (US) Committee (2001), the nurse leader should view health policies as 'something they can develop, rather than something that is just occurring to them.' Therefore, they are required to take on a hands-on approach in the redesign and conceptualization of policies that affect the health of their patients.
The traditional view of nurses in the profession portrays them as followers of instruction rather than independent strategists. A report by Jones (2010) listed nurses as one of the topmost trusted providers of health information. To achieve this, nurses need to show a range of competencies. As recommended by the American Association of Colleges of Nurses (AACN, 2008), nurses must have apt knowledge of the health delivery system, the need, and mode of working effectively within different disciplines, quality and safety improvement, and they possess a great level of innovativeness. The AACN recommends the inclusion of such skills in baccalaureate teaching programs to enable all nurses to possess them. In addition, nurse leaders should also have a specific set of skills tailored to the particular context and place.
Importance of nurse leadership to health and healthcare
Efficient and effective nurse leadership has been associated with various benefits to the health and health care industry as a collective. A study by Sfantou et al. (2017) proved the direct causal relationship between effective leadership in nursing and a conducive work environment. The high-quality environment creates a culture within the organization that in return fosters quality care of patients and increases nurse and patient satisfaction within the workplace.
By bringing nurses to work together in a team, nurse leaders can create a harmonious and goal-oriented collaboration of professionals committed to the same quality and care in the workplace. This ensures that the team is on the same page and leads to bettering the health industry. Furthermore, nurse leaders continuously monitor fellow nurses to ensure that the quality of their work is top-notch, which translates to the protection of patients and the improvement of the industry. Nurse leaders are also essential in maintaining the level of confidence and standards that patients expect from them in the organization, which they do by ensuring that all team members comply and follow the protocols that are put in place to ensure delivery of quality in the organization health care facilities.
Role of the nurse leader in influencing change in the health industry.
The importance of the nurse leader in influencing change in the health industry cannot be understated, and nurse leaders undertake a variety of roles to ensure that their patients access the quality care they deserve.
Nurse leaders have a crucial role in the design and redesign of healthcare policies. Since they are critical thinkers, nurses have extensive knowledge of the current healthcare policies and regulations. They are well equipped to understand the impact of the po...