Week 4- Chapter 3- Developing the Role of the Manager Flashcards
A nurse manager has worked rapidly to persuade the staff to accept changes in the unit’s mission, through innovative use of technology, to avoid downsizing. This nurse manager is displaying:
a. A focus on past concerns related to the mission.
b. How to teach staff members about self-management.
c. Facilitation of goal accomplishment.
d. A requirement that all staff members need to review and reinforce their
technologic skills.
ANS: C
Nurse managers, who are successful in motivating staff, provide a work environment that facilitates goal accomplishment and personal satisfaction. In this situation, the nurse manager worked quickly to avoid downsizing, thus facilitating the goal of avoiding staff layoffs.
The nurse manager, as the leader of the unit’s “customer (patient) first” initiative, has asked the staff nurses to develop and administer a survey to every patient before discharge. In asking the staff nurses to accomplish this task, the nurse manager is demonstrating
a. Accountability.
b. Shared governance.
c. A common purpose.
d. Independence in the nursing manager’s role.
B
A nurse manager is encountering considerable conflict among staff members because of weekend staffing coverage. During a called staff meeting, the nurse manager asks the disgruntled staff to meet as a group and determine the best staffing practices. In doing this, the nurse manager is using the concept of collaboration to:
a. Demonstrate interdependence.
b. Depict flexibility and broadmindedness.
c. Focus all energies of staff members on a win-win strategy.
d. Defuse the possibility that staff members’ discontent will escalate when staffing
the unit on weekends.
ANS: C
Conflict resolution skills are important for nursing managers. When collaboration is used to solve a conflict, all energies are focused on solving the problem, rather than on defeating other people with opposing views.
A nurse manager’s responsibility for financial management involves making budgetary decisions. Budgets that enable nurse managers to allocate resources at the unit level allow:
a. Minimal nurse manager input.
b. Limited rationale for budgetary requests.
c. Budgetary allocations at the executive nurse level.
d. Budgetary decision making at the point of service.
ANS: D
In organizational structures in which decision making occurs at the point of service, nurse managers are given responsibility for preparing and implementing a budget that meets the long- and short-term needs of their unit without requiring hierarchical approval.
Which represents one of the Canadian Nurses Association’s top six competencies of a good nurse manager?
a. Political activism.
b. Conflict resolution skills.
c. Budgetary responsibility.
d. Current clinical practice knowledge.
B
The top six competencies for nurse managers are: (1) accountability for professional practice, (2) verbal communication, (3) team-building skills, (4) leadership skills, (5) conflict resolution, and (6) knowledge of ethical and legal issues.
Whenever a staff nurse asks Sue, the nursing manager, about the best way to perform a new procedure, Sue immediately goes to the computer with the staff nurse and searches for online best practices related to the procedure in question. What is Sue demonstrating?
a. Lack of procedural knowledge.
b. Role-modelling evidence-informed decision-making.
c. Empowerment for the staff nurse to do this on her own, rather than involve the
manager.
d. The key role of informatics in the current health care system
ANS: B
Nurse managers can help staff use research evidence in their practice decision making by valuing research, role modelling, providing encouragement, ensuring policies are based on research and are up to date, and monitoring practice and patient outcomes.
Nurses on Unit 4 are unhappy and frustrated with their nurse manager. They complain that “nothing is ever good enough for him.” Such statements suggest that the nurse manager’s goals may be:
a. Measurable.
b. Unrealistic.
c. Attainable.
d. Too low.
ANS: B
Nurse managers need to set goals that are high enough to achieve excellence but reasonable enough to enable achievement. Lack of achievement can result in frustration.
Budgeting and protection of revenues is a function of:
a. Leadership.
b. Management.
c. Team leadership.
d. Followers.
B
Which of the following is important in a positive work environment?
a. One-way communication.
b. Accountability and clarity of roles and responsibilities.
c. Hierarchical decision making.
d. Challenge and striving for excellence.
B
As the manager of a unit with a high percentage of young professionals, you increase job satisfaction among this young staff by:
a. Providing high levels of job structure and task orientation.
b. Developing schedules that are fair and observing contractual obligations.
c. Utilizing skills in the staffing mix to optimize the delivery of patient care.
d. Establishing opportunities to self-schedule.
D
As a nurse manager, you determine that a shift in care models might decrease
workplace violence. Members of the hospital administration are reluctant to adopt this new approach to care. To leverage your ideas, you:
a. Ask staff to send e-mails to administration members encouraging consideration of your option.
b. Invite a senior member of administration to your staff meeting, so you can tell him
what you are planning.
c. Write a letter of complaint to a member of the institutional board about the lack of
openness of the administration.
d. Identify influential members of your nurse manager group with similar ideas and
request an opportunity to meet with administration members to discuss options.
ANS: D
In addressing issues with higher administration, it is important to develop power strategies such as seeking support from other influences in the organization.
On the first day of every month, the nursing manager on the surgical unit posts a staff nurse’s name on the bulletin board with the caption “Look what this great nurse did this month” and outlines nursing behaviours that were displayed by that particular nurse. This is an example of:
a. Negative reinforcement.
b. Valuing employees.
c. Obtaining evidence for performance appraisals.
d. Reinforcing the vision and goals of the organization.
ANS: B
Nurse managers must communicate their commitment so that staff members know they are valued in accomplishing the work of the unit that furthers the mission of the organization. One way of demonstrating that employees are valued is through recognition. Recognizing staff’s efforts is part of effective management practices
During staff meetings you make it a regular practice to encourage shared problem solving, and to recognize employees who go beyond basic roles and responsibilities to contribute to a positive team environment and to quality patient care. This practice exemplifies:
a. Values-based management.
b. Shaping of workplace behaviour.
c. Cooperation and collaboration.
d. Recognition of institutional priorities.
ANS: A
Values-based management recognizes that commitment to the vision, mission, and purpose of the organization is demonstrated in everyday behaviour, and that managers communicate their commitment to staff members by expressing the value of their work in accomplishing the mission, purpose, and priorities of the institution.
The successful integration of informatics into health care settings is key to:
a. Quality decision making and processes related to management of resources.
b. Accessing current information about business practices.
c. Leveraging ideas from other managers.
d. Speeding up calculations and decisions in budget development.
ANS: A
The use of informatics to research evidence and alternative models of delivery, to compare data and solutions with those of other managers, and to assist with integrative functions that make budgeting more efficient is related to a high quality of decision making and processes related to management of resources such as revenues and personnel.
A manager who is concerned with ensuring that patients on her surgical unit have the necessary information to make informed choices is:
a. Practicing legal nursing care.
b. Demonstrating respect for patients’ rights.
c. Avoiding risks.
d. Probably experiencing issues with informed consent.
B
In advocating for informed consent, the nurse manager is modelling professionalism and a professional philosophy that includes patient rights such as the right to informed consent. Concern for this right is associated with safe, competent, and ethical care.
