Introduction: One of the policy issues that IOM recommends in nursing is the need for strong leadership that would be a driving force in transforming the healthcare system (Mason et al. , 2013). There is a need for the nursing profession to produce some strong leaders at every level in the system that would direct junior staffs in handling things dealing with policy, organizations, politics and nursing practice. As required by the transformation and implementation provisions, the reforms in the health system demand that nurses must assume leadership capacities together with high-level corporative skills at any given time while on duty.
Therefore, this paper is a presentation of different current debates on various perspectives of the need for leadership policy issue that was recommended by the Institute of Medicine (IOM). The Need for Leadership Policy: Any form of leadership in the healthcare system requires some unique skills because the nursing profession is a dominant component of the patient care program in many healthcare facilities. The leadership skills should vary from coordinating, facilitating, and integrating the junior team members in performing activities that would create a mutual commitment to the system.
The leaders are responsible for promoting the actions of the juniors and advocate for the implementation of healthy change strategies that would ensure quality, value, and access to a patient-centered care environment (Mason et al. , 2013). The IOM emphasized the need for the leadership in healthcare programs because it is essential in advancing the nursing profession as a whole. The primary aim of the nursing profession is, therefore, to ensure a better leadership skill exists nd is developed through the inclusion of the leadership development at all levels of the nursing training and practice in the clinical and academic fields. The IOM’s report challenges the nursing profession to be responsible for managing their individual and professional growths in nurturing the appropriate leadership competencies. The reports went ahead to suggest that no nursing profession would advance without a good and developed leadership at all levels of the practice.
Therefore, leadership capacity is an essential component for the success of any healthcare facility in ensuring that they give the best patient care services. Recommendation: The IOM recommends that encouraging the practice of leadership at all levels of the nursing profession is an essential component of a whole healthcare program is a success. It emphasizes the need for the nurses to embrace leadership for diffuse and collaborative improvement efforts.
Therefore, the report requires the nurses to champion the leadership for the development and assessment of the payment models that would affect the delivery of the nursing care. The report of the IOM also advocates for the need for collaboration and pooling of funds to develop the survey on the approaches to care and well-thought solutions that would be useful in preventing any problem with the patient-care program. The report also recommends that there is the need to develop and adopt an innovative patient-centered care approach.
Additionally, real leadership would provide an entrepreneurial opportunity for many nurses that would help them in initiating programs that are directed towards improving the healthcare programs. The IOM report vividly reminds the nurses that they should assume the primary responsibility for their personal and professional development through activities that advance an individual’s education and chances that would be useful in progressing the leadership skills.
The recommendations of the report also identified some needs various nursing bodies that would facilitate the attention of the nurses in the provision of the eadership developments, mentoring the programs and various opportunities for the nurses. There is also the need to integrate some leadership theories and some sound business approaches in the entire curriculum and the field of the healthcare system. The final challenge that the report identified is that the current public and private healthcare decision-making authorities do not include some representations from the nursing profession that make the nurses feel devalued as they are not represented on the boards that is responsible for making decisions.
Arguments on the Importance of Leadership to the Nursing Profession: The IOM report recognized that leadership has to unfold every sector and level of the nursing profession and across any healthcare setting. For there to be a disciplinary system that controls the nursing practice and provides a reference point whenever there is a problem, there is a need for a body of managers that controls, coordinates and facilitates the nursing practice.
However, each sector of management and leadership demands different requirements for there to be an accurate and detailed leadership techniques that would be adhering to each need of the all the sectors (Hamric et al. , 2013). The report on the current healthcare issues in nursing also recognizes the importance of the freedom to innovations in the field of nursing and expression of the leadership roles in various sectors.
The presence of an innovative care approach in the nursing practice is an essential component of a lucrative nursing profession in the contemporary healthcare systems. Innovation care needs to operate at all levels of the leadership taking into account the need to transform the nursing, the nurses, and the general healthcare systems. The need for innovative care and some creative solutions that relate to contemporary nursing and health care issues can be evidenced in the current demands for the new service structures that aim at achieving an advanced quality healthcare.
Therefore, the opportunities for innovation and leadership combined have to be expressed in the field of nursing for the students, clinical leaders, the practitioners, the managers, the executives and the board members in the area of nursing. All of the roles give varying opportunities that would be useful in making essential changes beneficial to the growth, progress and the utility of the nursing roles that would come from a nursing student to a nurse researcher and the an executive in the nursing practice.
There is a need for the nurses in all the sectors to hear some of the calls to leadership from their roles in a manner that seeks to make a significant and particular variation in developing the roles of the profession, its interrelations, and clients the nurses serve. However, good leadership requires discipline-specific methods during any dispute resolution and instances that would require a consensus seeking, thus forming an internal disciplinary system for mediating various conflicts within a healthcare system would be useful.
Finally, proper leadership in nursing practice requires the profession to represents the needs and views of the nurses in different boards that would be important in maintaining a central role in mechanisms of the patient’s quality and safety care. The nursing organizations need to see themselves as important purveyors that represent the professional missions that seek to advance the quality, security and also add value to the patient-centered healthcare for various clients.
Therefore, working in collaboration with different disciplines in the healthcare system gives the opportunity for nurses to speak in more unified voice in developing other nursing policies that would lead to tremendous achievements in the nursing practice. The Leadership Policy: After creating the needed evidence that supports the need for leadership at various levels of the nursing practice, there is a need to come with leadership models that would ensure a more efficient patient-centered care models and also improve the quality, value and access to the whole healthcare system.
Therefore, nurses must be in a position to establish some political and practice partnerships since leadership is all about the politics of electing the most popular person through democratic elections. Therefore, the political involvement is essential skill set though many nurses have not yet refined it into them hence making some few challenges. For example, nurse leaders need to demonstrate the capacity to manage the political environment and influence some of the policies that are essential for the progression of the whole system.
Therefore, after the creation of the practical models, it is imperative for the idealizing and generalizing the broad the large institutions through proper leadership techniques. Leaders should be responsible for suggesting policies and practices that would be effective in replicating and providing the healthcare foundations to propose some political actions and policy changes.
Conclusion: In conclusion, one would say that the establishment of any policy within a nursing practice and a healthcare system as a whole requires the inputs of some competent leaders. It is through effective leadership techniques that every bit of the nursing profession would be a success right from the students to the executives because they direct other members on the best ways to follow to ensure that the healthcare system is at its best at all the times.
Leadership will also help in solving the problems that existed where many nurses felt unrepresented in many board meetings where decisions affecting their welfare at workplaces were discussed and arrived. Therefore, leadership is a contemporary healthcare issue that if well addressed, other policies and variables would be implemented without much difficulties or coordination, facilitation and even management as leaders in various fields will be responsible for all the requirements.