As the healthcare industry continues to evolve and endure periods of upheaval, smart and savvy nurse leadership has never been more critical.
But as Judy Watland, R.N., MSN, Senior Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer/Nurse Executive at O'Connor Hospital in San Jose, CA, told me recently, it takes more than excellent clinical skills to rise to the role of today's nurse leader.
"Today's leaders have to be so much more than that," she told me. "We have to have new skill sets" including business proficiency, an understanding of financial principles, knowledge of productivity management, and the ability to give nursing a voice at the board table.
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Watland and her colleagues agree that healthcare organizations would be well-served by working with schools to help young nurses in training receive the kind of skills they'll need in a post-reform environment.
That's why it's exciting to see nursing schools taking nurse leadership so seriously with programs specifically designed to cultivate these skills in future leaders.
One of those schools, the College of Nursing at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, announced this week the development of the Tennessee Nursing Institute for Leadership and Policy. Funded through a two-year $150,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Future of Nursing State Implementation Program and matching funds from several Tennessee organizations, the institute aims to provide nurses in the state with the knowledge and skills necessary to transform healthcare delivery.
It will provide educational programming and training to practicing nurses and other healthcare professionals with the goal of changing Tennessee's system of care to improve health measures across the state. For example, the state is poorly ranked against other states in the areas of overall well-being, obesity, and infant mortality.
What struck me in reading about the program is how closely a statement from the dean of the College of Nursing mirrored the one I heard from Watland.
"Increasingly, nurses are taking on leadership roles in redesigning and improving health care environments," Vickie Niederhauser, dean of the College of Nursing, said in a statement announcing the Tennessee Nursing Institute for Leadership and Policy. "The institute will provide the knowledge and skills for novice as well as experienced nurses to lead these changes."
Surely, those leadership roles in redesigning healthcare will involve the additional skills that Watland mentions above.
The Tennessee Nursing Institute for Leadership and Policy isn't the only new program for developing nursing leadership. Just a couple of weeks ago, the University at Buffalo School of Nursing announced it will offer a master's degree in Nursing Leadership in Health Care Systems beginning this summer.
The new program will educate baccalaureate-prepared registered nurses for middle- and upper-level management positions in an effort to help nurse managers "with the preparation needed to keep pace with the challenges facing health care leaders today," reports the Laramie Boomerang. Once again, statements from nurse leaders mirror one another.
"Our community partners identified the need for a program designed specifically to educate baccalaureate-prepared registered nurses to assume leadership and executive roles. Today's healthcare settings require nurse managers to take on expanding roles in management to promote innovative change and quality outcomes," said UB School of Nursing Dean, Marsha Lewis, PhD.
These new programs and others like them are a step in the right direction for developing the kind of nurse leaders who will effectively lead providers, hospitals, and others into the future of healthcare.
Another important step is for nurses to challenge themselves to step into more authoritative roles. Instead of worrying that they don't have the skills to advance, more nurses need to step out of their comfort zones and push themselves to develop the skills that will put them on the path to leadership.
Alexandra Wilson Pecci is an editor for HealthLeaders.
