Running head: Analyzing a Nurse

Analyzing a Nurse in a Manager Role

Kassie Herp
Ferris State University (Big Rapids, MI)

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Analyzing a Nurse in a Manager Role

This paper is about what it means to be a nurse manager and how the qualities of a nurse
manager affect the patients and the organization. The information provided in this paper is from
an interview with the nurse manager of the 3H spine and neuro unit at Spectrum Health Blodgett
Hospital, Val Tumbleson. She started off her nursing career on 4N an orthopedic/trauma unit at
Butterworth hospital for four and a half years. She then transferred to 3H neuro/spine unit where
she was the night shift supervisor for 2 years. The manager of her unit ended up taking a new job
and they asked Val if she wanted to take over the manager position. She said that she was a little
apprehensive at first, but is very happy that she took the job. She received her RN, BSN and is
currently going back for her MSN. She said that there is a possibility of going back for her DNP,
but right now, she just wants to focus on finishing her MSN (personal communication, June 22,
2015).
Roles and Responsibilities
Nurse Managers play a very important part of a nursing unit. The main responsibilities,
according to Yoder-Wise are Managers address complex issues by organizing, planning,
budgeting, and setting target goals. They meet their goals by organizing, staffing, controlling,
and solving problems. (Yoder-Wise, 2015). This can mean different things to different people.
For Val, the nurse managers essential role is to help other nurses develop as better nurses, and to
remove obstacles for other nurses (personal communication, June 22, 2015).
The role that Val must play is that of a manager, leader, educator, mentor, and decision
maker. Val is the one that keeps track of how the unit is doing, she makes sure that her 40-50
staff members are doing their to the best of their ability and making sure that they are keeping up
to date with their qualifications. She also organizes the unit and keeps track of their statistics for

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patient care, safety on the unit, and much more. Val also talked about her role in organizing and
maintaining the budget. It is her job to keep a close watch on how much the unit is spending and
if there is a shortage or an overage she decides what to do about it. For instance, if there is not
enough money in the budget she has to look at pay cuts or laying off a staff member. If there is
an overage in the budget she can look at equipment that the unit might need or pay raises or
bonuses for the staff members. She also has to take on the task of hiring and firing.
With Val being the Nurse Manager, she is kind of the day to day problem solver of the
unit, but if there is something that is going on that is bigger than she can handle on her own she
goes to the director of nursing. Val also serves as the liaison between the director and her staff.
Communication and Relationship Building
Yoder-Wise states that the only thing human beings do more often than communicate is
breath. Communication is the most important component of daily activities. It is essential to
clinical practice, to building teams, and to leadership. A person cannot not communicate.
(Yoder-Wise, 2015). Val takes the idea of communication one step further in her job, stating that
open communication is key for peers and managers to work well together. (personal
communication, June 22, 2015). The reason that communication is so important to this job is
because the manager is essential in charge of the rest of the staff. This means that the manager
needs to relay information to the staff members to make sure they are up to date on new policies
and procedures as well as new education. The manager also has to handle interviews and letting
staff go as well as crucial conversations. This type of conversation is a conversation that has to
be had with a staff member if there is a problem with them, if they need some sort of discipline,
it happens during a crucial conversation. The manager also has to communicate with the director,
other nurse managers and patients. With all of these conversations that have to be had it is

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pertinent that the manager have good communication skills. Some effective communicating
skills are listening skills, verbal and nonverbal skills.
Based on this information, it is evident that communication can greatly affect the patient
and the organization. If the nurse manager fails to effectively communicate to the staff about
policies, procedures, and evidenced based care, than the patient could suffer greatly. It could also
affect the organization, because it could reflect badly on them.

Knowledge of Health Care Environment

Knowledge of healthcare environment is more or less understanding how the unit works
and ways to improve the unit. This means that you need to be knowledgeable of the specialty of
our unit, and what the best evidenced based practice is for the unit. For Vals unit, the nurses
need to be well versed on neuroscience and spine. She consistently monitors how the unit is
doing, what are some areas that need improvement and making sure that her staff are up to date
on evidenced based practice, such as stroke scales (personal communication, June 22, 2015).
Knowledge of a health care environment not only applies to nurse managers, but also to
the rest of the staff. If the staff under the nurse manager does not have adequate knowledge of the
health care environment, then this could cause harm to the patients. If the patients do not receive
the best care or care that has been proven effective by evidenced based practice, than they are at
a greater risk of having complications. This also can affect the organization by giving it bad
rapport, and risking lack of financial reimbursement if the patient has complications.
Leadership

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Leadership is use of individual traits and abilities, in relationship with others, and the ability to
interpret the environment/context where a situation is emerging, and enter that situation in the
absence of a script of defined plan that could have been projected. (Yoder-Wise, 2015).
The Nurse Manager has to be able to be an effective leader on their unit. Leadership plays
a big role in how the unit is run, how the staff works and performs, and overall the type of care
that patients receive. If you do not have a good leader to monitor the unit, than everything starts
to go to the wayside and health and lives could be affected by that.
According to Amundsen and Martinsen, leadership directly affected empowerment
which had a direct effect on professional practice which had a direct effect on nurses perception
of quality of patient care. In this particular case the patient care was negatively affected because
the staff was having a negative perception of their job, because of short staffing. (Amundsen
and Martinesen, 2015). This is a good example at how leadership can greatly affect the
organization and the patient care, if you are lacking a strong leadership to help pull you through a
rough time, everyone involved will be affected by it.
Professionalism
Val addressed professionalism in her interview, stating that in her job she has to maintain
professionalism at all times, more than she did before (personal communication, June 22, 2015).
Her job not only requires her to be professional, but to also hold others accountable for being
professional. When being professional she has to remember that she is the example for all the
staff underneath her. Ways that she can be professional are described by Yoder-Wise as
Professionalism includes academic preparation, roles and function and increasing autonomy.
Professionalism is all encompassing and reflects the managers professional philosophy as to

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how the or she interacts with personnel, other disciplines, patients and families. (Yoder-Wise,
2015).
Professionalism can greatly affect patients and the organization. If the staff is being
unprofessional and not treating their patients with respect, a lot of things can go to the way side
because of it. Little things like talking about other patients around doors to patients rooms, not
being respectful and talking behind peoples backs or com plaining out loud all the time can
show a sense of negativity toward the patient. The organization is directly affected by this,
because if there is something confidential that is said when it is not supposed to be then the
organization can be subject to legal action. It could also give the organization a bad reputation
causing patients and possibly staff to turn away and go somewhere else.
Business Skills
When asked what business skills are needed for this job, Val stated that you need to be
able to work with technology, work on a budget, have professionalism, and understand what it is
like to run a unit (personal communication, June 22, 2015). Some other business skills that are
described are financial management, human resource management, performance improvement,
foundation thinking skills, technology, strategic management, and clinical practice knowledge.
(Nurse Manager Skills Inventory, 2008). These are all described as ways to manage the business
for a nurse manager.
With these skills in mind you can see that the business side of a nurse manager can affect
the patient and the organization. If the manager does not do a good job with their business skills,
such as financial management and human resource management, than the patients could be
receiving mediocre care. This could be because the staff are not held accountable like they
should be or that the unit is negative on their budget and they cant afford things that could affect

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the patients. This is a good example of how a hospital is a medical center to treat patients but
also a business. So the leaders in the organization need to have an understanding on how to run a
business to better their unit and overall, the hospital.

Conclusion
In conclusion, you can see that there are many things that affect a patient and the
organization when looking at the roles and responsibilities of a nurse manager. It is apparent in
the evidence provided as well as the interview. This paper also does a good job at describing
what it is like to be a nurse manager and how it can affect the other staff.

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References
Amundsen, S., & Martinsen, O. (2015). Linking Empowering Leadership to Job Satisfaction,
Work Effort, and Creativity: The Role of Self-Leadership and Psychological
Empowerment. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 45(5), 304-323.
Doi:10.1097NNA.0000000000000198
Nurse Manager Skills Inventory. (2008). Retrieved July 24, 2015, from
http://www.aacn.org/wd/practice/docs/nurse-manager-inventory-tool.pdf?menu=practice
Yoder-Wise, P. (2015). Leading and Managing in Nursing (6th ed.). St. Louis, MO:
Mosby/Elsevier.