Changes in nursing leadership roles and responsibilities
Nurse education has developed fast in Kazakhstan during the last years. The state educational standards have been modernized responding to the working life needs, and especially according to the needs of the population. The new applied bachelor education is also fulfilling the European directives. The first applied bachelor nurses have graduated and can now work as nurses with extended practice. As the nursing education has been developed to lead up to the doctoral level, also the healthcare organizations need to be ready for the nurses with extended practice, nurses with their master level education, and nurses with their doctoral degree. This means that the organization structures need to offer new positions for the nurses in all levels of the organization, as well as new roles and responsibilities to organize the work. In order to success in these changes the good change management skills are required from the senior and chief nurses.
One aim of the ProInCa -project is to write recommendations for developing nursing leadership and nursing leadership university training based on the research results from the survey which was conducted at 2018. The respondents emphasized the role of nursing leadership education and competency development to enhance nursing leadership in health care. Nursing leadership and management education should be strengthened at universities, and there is a need for nursing leadership discipline to be established at Kazakhstani universities. With higher education there would emerge a new generation of nurses who are able to enhance nursing profession and nursing process in health care. In addition, enhancing nursing professions autonomy is one task of present and future nursing leaders, but at the same time nurse and doctor partnership is highly important. In all development activities international and national benchmarking and cooperation would benefit nursing and nursing leadership education as well as nursing practices. Overall nursing competency development was seen an essential area in the implementation of the nursing reform.
Guideline of Unified recommendations for practical healthcare organizations on the implementation of a model for the organization of nursing services are soon delivered to the Kazakhstan healthcare organizations. The aim of these recommendations is to support the development of nursing and the new nursing leadership positions in health care facilities. In this situation strong nursing change management is needed. ProInCa project is supporting the nursing leadership development and change management work by providing a Leadership in Nursing material on the Center for Nursing Excellence (CNE, https://nursekz.com/ru/about/) platform, where leadership materials are available for nurse educators and nurses interested in developing their leadership skills. In addition, the nursing leadership blog is coming onto the CNE, which gives the possibility to share the best leadership practices, and to make the nursing leadership visible. Sharing the good practices and ideas is supporting the nursing development in healthcare organizations, and encouraging nursing educators, nursing leaders and nurses to innovate the nursing practice. Blog is a modern way to empower nurse leaders with their new role and responsibilities in healthcare. Nurses and other health care professionals are the ones making the nursing reform happen.
Hannele Tiittanen, Päivi Huotari
University of applied science Lahti