Free Essay Sample: Coaching Model for Low-Performing Nurse

Introduction

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Alice, a new nurse in the Critical Care Unit, is showing great struggles and hindrances in conducting her mundane roles and responsibilities. For this reason, the nurse manager seeks to develop a clear and concise, intensive yet effective coaching for the nurse to help him gain expertise and gain confidence in her line of work. For the coaching, the nurse manager has to incorporate the principles of effective coaching in accordance to Lussier & Hendon (2016).

Job Analysis

Alice has acquired proper credentials and qualifications so as to secure her current nurse position. She is responsible for; assessing a patient’s condition and planning and also implementing patient care plans, ordering diagnostic costs, acting as patient advocate, administering intravenous fluids and medications, responding to life-saving circumstances by applying the nursing standards and protocols for treatment, acting as the advocate for the patient, observing and recording patient vital signs, and also providing the necessary support and education to the family members of the patient. The nurse has lately been found to be implicated by a number of shortcomings in the way she carries some of her responsibilities: she has not developed appropriate communication skills and also fails to identify certain complications in time for some of the patients’ conditions which at times impairs her care administration.

The nurse fails to communicate effectively with the families of the patients and not to forget the other medical practitioners in the unit. Communication is essentially very important for enabling a successful workforce in any organization (Dessler, 2015; Marquis, & Huston, 2015). For instance, she is at times overwhelmed by emotions and tends to make ineffective and clouded decisions when administering some medications. There was an instance where she administered an anesthetic to a patient without checking the health details of the patient simply because the patient was in so much pain. The drug she administered ended up disfiguring the patient’s breathing system and were it not for the intervention of another nurse; the patient would have succumbed to the introduced breathing difficulty. Also, she has been found living out some crucial information about the patient’s condition and the way forward to the patient’s family members: omitting or exaggerating on the patients’ options and information to their families.

The same scenario of administering a drug without a thorough medical background check upon the individual patient serves as an example of an instance where she once failed to denote the complications in the breathing of the patient arose from the administered drug: she was unable to identify the cause of the medical condition that she had effected. Thus, there is a need for the nurse to undergo a thorough coaching process that helps develop a professional control of her compassion and helps develop a substantial gain of knowledge for the administration of drugs bearing in mind that such medical errors are very common in the current medical sector (Marquis & Huston, 2015).

Performance: Current and Desired

From the current situation, the nurse may be lacking enough motivation even though her skills may be fresh from school and also has the necessary resources to up her performance, the nurse requires intensive coaching being a freshly recruited nurse who does not have so much experience. Additionally, her ability to communicate well should be enhanced if she is to work effectively with the doctors and other personnel within the organization not to forget the gain of the right communication with the patient and the families. In other words, her performance is short of motivation which would help her gain confidence and also enable her to develop a less emotional interaction with the patients. The result of motivating her is the fact that the performance will be significantly improved in which case, the nurse will be able to apply her skills. The current performance is, therefore, lacking motivation and ability to communicate well which means that the desired performance should be such that she can have both the motivation to work and the ability to communicate effectively.

Commitment to Change Strategies

The plan (Appendix 1) is such that the employee should be summoned by the manager and told that she has been showing a poor performance in her line of work. The nurse should be notified of the times that she was found at fault as already discussed and be advised that she should improve her performance. For instance, the manager should share his/her experiences when she was fresh in the employment sector. As such, the manager should cite specific instances that he/she made a mistake that almost (not necessarily) cost someone’s life. Further, the coach should organize a motivational forum where the new nurse can share experiences with renown nurses and medical practitioners and at the same time she should be given training sessions on how to handle specific often severe cases in the critical care unit. Dealing with such cases in training and knowing that the mistakes she has ever made (which may be reducing her confidence) are normal and redeemable from by gaining the right motivation and enough confidence.

On the second shortcoming of communication, the nurse should be taken through psychological sessions in which she is trained to control her emotions and match up to a professional handling of delicate situations. In other words, the nurse should be counseled so that she gets a way of getting hold of her emotions so that it neither impairs her communication nor her decision making during the administration of a drug following a specific disease or condition. Also, the nurse should always be encouraged to see someone or back from carrying out a medical procedure if she happens to be in an overwhelming work situation involving a critical patient.

In the course of training and psychological sessions, the nurse should be impelled to use adhere to the new mode of conduct through word of mouth or even a written consent. The commitment should be tied to the occurrence of implications such as suspension or termination from the line of work. In other words, she should be coaxed to deliver to the set standards and be prompted never to give a drug from pity, share information out of desperation or in control of emotions. Yes, she should be sensitive but always be professional and considerate.

Follow-Up Plan

Finally, for follow-up, the nurse should be signed up for sharing sessions with the psychologists or other medical officers on her progress and on how the motivational and training have improved her confidence and way of dealing with severe situations. If any faults are detected, the nurse should be advised thoroughly on how to go about eliminating them with frequent consultation.

Alignment with mission, vision and goals (Rationale)

The enhancement of the communication and the motivation of the nurse will help in attaining the mission and vision of the organization. The mission aims at attaining and employing highly motivated and committed employees who will solemnly deliver their services with the utmost wellbeing of the patient. For the vision, the organization foresees a delivery of highest quality of health care services as a way of achieving the organization’s mission. The rationale being that an enhancement of the nurse’s performance is for the better good of the whole organization in the delivery of quality health care services.

References

Dessler, G. (2015). Human resource management. (14th ed.) Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Lussier, R. N. & Hendon, J. R. (2016). Human Resource Management: Functions, Applications, and skill development (2nd ed.) Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Marquis, B. L. & Huston, C. J. (2015). Leadership roles and management functions in nursing: Theory and Application (8th ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

Appendix 1

Mentoring and Training Plan

(The following plan is meant to run for the next two months in the least)

Mentoring & Training: week 1, 3, 5 & 7

Week 1- dealing with common conditions

Week 3- dealing with fatal accident conditions (part 1: with peer nurse)

Week 5- dealing with fatal condition (part II: under supervision)

Week 7- dealing with severe condition: under pressure alone

Psychologist Sessions: week 1 through to week 8.

Each week- 2 sessions; Tuesday and Thursday

Remedial- any other time a major-medical service is offered or conducted.

Assessment- each week once by the coaching nurse