Nursing leadership (Toronto, Ont.)
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Nurs Leadersh (Tor Ont) · Jun 2021
A Pandemic Leadership Program for Managers to Enhance Staff Resiliency and Psychological Safety during COVID-19.
The Public Health Branch of the Regional Municipality of York created a specialized team to ensure a people-centred approach for the deployment of the workforce during COVID-19. Due to increasing stress and staff burnout, there was an apparent need for enhanced leadership supports that would expand the skills of managers to apply participative management competencies and resiliency strategies within their teams. A range of leadership development activities were designed that included ready-to-use actionable tools, best practice interventions for resiliency development and comprehensive initiatives, such as mentorship and debriefing. Benefits include manager capacity development resulting in improvements in organizational resilience and psychological safety.
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Nurs Leadersh (Tor Ont) · Mar 2021
ReviewCOVID-19-Related Occupational Burnout and Moral Distress among Nurses: A Rapid Scoping Review.
The COVID-19 pandemic is placing unprecedented pressure on a nursing workforce that is already under considerable mental strain due to an overloaded system. Convergent evidence from the current and previous pandemics indicates that nurses experience the highest levels of psychological distress compared with other health professionals. Nurse leaders face particular challenges in mitigating risk and supporting nursing staff to negotiate moral distress and fatigue during large-scale, sustained crises. Synthesizing the burgeoning literature on COVID-19-related burnout and moral distress faced by nurses and identifying effective interventions to reduce poor mental health outcomes will enable nurse leaders to support the resilience of their teams. ⋯ Thematic analysis of selected studies suggests that nurses are at an increased risk for stress, burnout and depression during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Younger female nurses with less clinical experience are more vulnerable to adverse mental health outcomes.
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The "wobble room" is a wellness intervention designed to guide staff through unpredictable times that are not going away quickly. Emergency department teams are accustomed to trauma events and trauma debriefing, but the prolonged uncertainties and fears associated with COVID-19 have posed a unique challenge for healthcare workers. The wobble room has become a place where staff can make sense of how the pandemic is affecting them and create a "new normal" with respect to personal safety and team cohesion.
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Nurs Leadersh (Tor Ont) · Sep 2020
The Impact of COVID-19 within Academic Settings: A High-Speed Pivot.
In a high-speed pivot never seen before in post-secondary education in Canada, the COVID-19 pandemic upended every facet of academia. Almost overnight the system transitioned to remote teaching, empty campuses and research stoppages. ⋯ Several months into the pandemic, circumstances are still far from normal as we continue to expect the unexpected and prepare to be nimble agents of change in the months ahead. This commentary outlines my observations as a faculty member during the past few months.
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Nurs Leadersh (Tor Ont) · Mar 2019
Getting Comfortable with "It Depends": Embracing the Impermanence of Scope of Practice.
Scope of practice of nursing roles is continually evolving to meet the ever-changing needs of patient populations and the healthcare system and to reflect changes in legislation, regulation and education requirements. As such, leaders must embrace the impermanence of scope of practice rather than constructing mental models, policies and practices as if the foundation will never change. Impermanence is the only constant, as the complexities within healthcare require that nurses be knowledgeable and flexible to fully leverage our individual and collective contributions to not only our patients but also our profession.