Best Nursing Practices for Charge Nurses

Best Nursing Practices for Charge Nurses

Introduction

Numerous Licensed Practical Nurses (LPNs) assume leadership positions in Extended Care Facilities (ECFs) such as nursing home and supervise nursing and healthcare assistants. LPNs also assume the leadership position in a variety of spheres of responsibility, including clinics, insurance companies and the military. The role of an LPN is multi-faceted, encompassing the dual responsibility of both a manger and leader. A charge nurse's responsibilities comprise collecting shift reports, resolving client acuity, assigning clients to nursing staff, and most importantly, proficiently handing emergency situations. Additionally, the charge nurse will coordinate an entire unit's activities by assigning staff breaks, monitoring coverage for breaks, encouraging and ensuring attendance at team conferences and meetings, guaranteeing client testing and procedural responsibilities and checking supply stocks and equipment availability and conditions respectively (Rosdahl & Kowalski, 2008).

Charge nurses perform additional tasks such as counting narcotics or checking the medication dispensing machine and/or cross-checking primary suppliers' orders at the beginning and end of all shifts. Charge nurses may also monitor and evaluate the crash cart, report to the nursing supervisor, check whether adequate staff is available for the next shift, dispatch client acuity reports to the hospital or clinic administration, and run control checks on blood sugar testing equipment (Rosdahl & Kowalski, 2008). The number of overwhelming tasks that they accomplish on an everyday basis sets strong leadership skills as a prerequisite for charge nurses. This paper evaluates the notion of “best practices” for charge nurses who are entrusted with delegating patient care to reporting nursing staff.

Discussion

Charge Nurses' Decision-Making Behavior: Delegating Patient Care

Leadership and Decision-Making

Patient care outcomes are directly linked to nurse staffing decisions. Charge nurses are largely accountable for intrashift staffing decision. Wilson, Talsma & Martyn (2011) conducted a research on a sample of 24 nurses to determine the most significant responsibility of charge nurses. Research findings indicated that staffing and delegating patient care to the nursing staff was the principal role of charge nurses. Decisions behaviors observed in the study reflected behaviors of workers in a stressful work environment. According to Hinshaw (2008) and Page (2004), necessary components of patient care such as patient safely cultures can significantly improve given a transformation of leadership within charge nurses and nursing executives.

Staffing and Quality Care

Hall, Doran & Pink (2008) suggest that there has been a gradual and unsettling increase in the number and gravity of negative patient outcomes which brought the focus of nursing research towards factors existing within healthcare environments that either further or impede optimum patient healthcare. Miner-Williams, Connelly & Yoder (2000) argue that the role of charge nurses of guaranteeing quality patient care is juxtaposed with their leadership role of delegating patient care. Olds & Clarke (2010) reinforce this juxtaposition by advocating that nurse leaders are consistently confronted with unpredictable and emergency healthcare situation, making decisions that will not only impact the work environment, but also either bolster or compromise patient safety and care. For instance, if the work load is substantially strenuous, a charge nurse ...