Running head: ESSENTIAL II: QUALITY AND SAFETY 1

e-Portfolio – Essential II: Basic Organizational and Systems Leadership for

Quality Care and Patient Safety

Angèle C. Wright

Frostburg State University

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e-Portfolio – Essential II: Basic Organizational and Systems Leadership for Quality Care and

Patient Safety

Essential II describes the importance of the baccalaureate trained nurse’s ability to

understand and utilize quality improvement initiatives in order to develop and maintain a safe

clinical nursing practice. In order to do so, the baccalaureate trained nurse must demonstrate the

use of strong leadership, communication, and critical-thinking skills; as well as the ability to

employ quality improvement processes to remove any inefficiencies and safety risks from their

current practice. Moreover, the baccalaureate trained nurse must remember to make quality

improvement an integral part of one’s practice. All actions must reflect the best quality and

safest course of care in order to maximize the patient’s outcomes.

Creative Implementation of Leadership Project

The Creative Implementation of Leadership Project is an opportunity for the nursing

student to demonstrate his or her ability to implement key concepts (leadership, conflict

resolution, team building, communication, delegation, and creativity) in order to develop or

describe a practice that reflects a comprehensive understanding of quality and safety based care

on a microsystem level; whether it be an actual unit or an imagined area of care. At the end of

this project, not only has the nursing student gained a deeper perspective of quality and safety

based care, but also has a better understanding of how his or her actions can deeply impact their

patient’s outcomes as well as support their organization’s mission and vision.

Parallels between Essential II and the Leadership Project

The Creative Implementation of Leadership Project (CILP) asks the future baccalaureate

trained nurse to develop a current or imagined area of care that reflects the key components
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described in Essentials II: “possession of strong leadership, teamwork, and communication

skills, understanding of complex healthcare systems and organizational structure relationships, as

well as patient safety principles” (American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), 2010,

p. 16). The CILP asked the nursing student to describe a practice where the student displays

strong leadership skills, promotes teamwork, creates and maintains an effective work team, and

can effectively explain how their role relates to and interacts with other key members of the

team, i.e. human resources, finance, marketing, etc.

Essentials II also delves deeply into the baccalaureate trained nurse’s understanding of

problem solving and quality improvement methodologies; quantifying the nursing student’s

ability to ascertain the difference between the dynamic pursuit of continuous improvement and

the more stationary quality assurance snapshot (AACN, 2010, p. 16). While working on the

CILP, the nursing student had to outline the accreditation process required by the appropriate

regulatory bodies in order to operate within the practice’s jurisdiction. One of the reoccurring

accreditation requirements was the need to have a specific quality improvement methodology in

place within the operation. This methodology, along with the key components listed above,

afforded the baccalaureate trained nurse the opportunity to eliminate inefficiencies and errors

within a standardized process, “participate in a root cause analysis, and evaluate the effect of

change” and how it allows the amended process to help maximize positive patient outcomes as

well as support the organization’s mission and vision (Amer, 2013, p. 59).
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References

Amer, K.S. (2013). Quality and safety for transformational nursing core competencies. (1st Ed.).

Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson

American Association of Colleges of Nursing. (2008, October 20). The essentials of

baccalaureate education. Retrieved from http://www.aacn.nche.edu/education-

resources/BaccEssentials08.pdf.

Sullivan, E.J. (2012). Effective leadership and management in nursing. (8th Ed.). Upper Saddle

River, NJ: Pearson