Leadership is one of the most significant aspects of advanced nursing, included in most educational programs’ curriculum and inevitably occurred in practice. Indeed, solving a problem identified in a healthcare organization enables a practitioner to develop convincing arguments to encourage others to take actionEast Orange General Hospital, create plans and execute them, and evaluate the efficiency of interventions (Hickey & Giardino, 2021). In my practicum site, East Orange General Hospital, the problem of the impoverished population’s refusal to attend the follow-up visits with their doctor has been recently identified. Consequently, my practice hours completion is focused on creating interventions and solutions to the issue, and creating a plan with proper strategies is vital for success. This paper aims to explore the project management design and leadership styles appropriate for the efficient addressing of the issue of the impoverished population skipping the follow-up appointments.
The problem of the impoverished beneficiaries who do not attend their follow-up visits is critical for the East Orange General Hospital because most patients represent that population, and their behavior negatively influences the services’ quality. Skipped appointments are severe for the organizations because they reduce efficiency, increase costs, and waste the previous treatment results (Dantas et al., 2018). The issue must be addressed on the healthcare organization’s end with the practitioners, physicians, and administrators involved. The initiative’s implementation requires an execution design that includes diverse leadership approaches and project management techniques where multiple activities can be performed and evaluated simultaneously. The SMART objectives and evidence-based practice implementation are the design approaches for creating a project to address the problem of impoverished patients skipping their follow-up visits (Sipes, 2020). For instance, the objectives must be formulated based on the recent evidence, with the related actions necessary to achieve them.
The strategy’s focus is the population that needs an intervention to change their behavior towards attending the doctor. As the beneficiaries interact with their physicians, nurses, and administrators, a change in their practice is required to decrease the number of missed follow-up visits. The Statement of Work (SOW) must include separate action plans for each stakeholder; thus, the leadership styles to address them can vary (Sipes, 2020). In interaction with the administrators, autocratic execution is appropriate as they must follow the action plan to achieve results (Spiva et al., 2021). In contrast, physicians aware of aspects of their patient’s life and health conditions can use different influence tactics; therefore, the leadership style suitable for them is transformational. Nursing practitioners’ role in the project is to communicate with the impoverished population and encourage them to change behavior towards attending the follow-up visit. Consequently, they would benefit from the visionary leadership style through which the person in charge would support their willingness to impact patient outcomes.
Several practice changes must be implemented to address the issue of the East Orange General Hospital’s impoverished patients misattending their follow-up visits. Patient education performed by a physician should explain the importance of the additional appointment and the consequences of skipping it (White et al., 2021). Nursing practitioners can influence patients’ decision-making by discussing the priorities of the impoverished population representatives and sharing information about the costs of treatment that a timely follow-up visit could prevent. From the administrators’ perspective, practice change includes new protocols of notification, such as the increased number of SMS and phone calls.
The barriers to successful project management and realization are uncertain hospital attendance policies frequently updated in the East Orange General Hospital due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, the patients’ reaction to practice change is unknown and might result in adjusting all execution strategies and the project’s activities (Sloane et al., 2018). A plan facilitator with various actions and participants must be the one with access to all units and authority among the stakeholders (White et al., 2021). My preceptor was willing to develop and execute the agenda; thus, they took the role.
The project’s success depends on how the entire team will deal with the barriers, the facilitators’ ability to notice and address the issue timely, and the execution’s efficiency. Indeed, in the case of the COVID-19 lockdowns or other side reasons for the impoverished population’s inability to visit the hospital, physicians, practitioners, and administrators would be forced to change their activities. The autocratic leadership style would be beneficial for the latter to change their follow-up notifications or switch by following the new instructions (Sipes, 2020). Transformational relationships between the executors and physicians would allow the doctors to create individualized tactics to reach patients, such as telemedicine recently adopted in several East Orange General Hospital units. Lastly, the visionary leadership style applied to nursing practitioners will help them keep trying to impact their beneficiaries.
The leader’s skills, such as listening, delegation, and evidence-based decision-making, match the identified facilitators and barriers. Indeed, the practice gap achieved through multiple actions performed by diverse employees is proven successful when an executive person hears and addresses the feedback (Sloane et al., 2018). Furthermore, a leader who prioritizes delegation over multitasking is more efficient as they make all team members feel needed and free up time for additional research or strategy improvement.
Addressing the problem of the impoverished population refusing to attend their follow-up visits is crucial for the East Orange General Hospital. The project management strategies must comply with the roles of all stakeholders and include SMART objectives based on the evidence about the population and their behavior’s consequences. Diverse leadership styles, such as autocratic, transformational, and visionary, are necessary to achieve sustainable results effectively.