The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the whole world to its knees with ever-rising infections and deaths. It has led to severe disruptions across the education, business as well as healthcare sectors. Meanwhile, the healthcare sector contributes the prime efforts of research and development of treatment procedures to tackle the pandemic effectively. It involves different roles from the healthcare professionals, from researching the patterns and severity of disease to drug and treatment development. One of the top healthcare professionals playing a crucial role in tackling the pandemic is nurse leaders. Most people never think of the nurses beyond the bed care. Today, nurse roles are expanding to leadership levels to provide the patients with unparalleled and best healthcare services.
The Healthcare sector is experiencing severe shortages of professional nurses to deal with the patients of COVID-19. At the same time, they also need leaders to devise better healthcare plans and increase patient's health outcomes. Professionals encourage the existing nurses to continue the education to update skills and expand their roles. Meanwhile, many individuals never consider continuing education because of the priorities of the ongoing job. With the dawn of online education, leaders can encourage the team to pursue and acquire new skills. By acquiring an online education, they can easily cater to both priorities at the same time. Considering a terminal degree in nursing can allow the individuals to acquire new roles on the leadership level and fill the significant voids in the healthcare sector.
Let's discuss the roles that nurse leaders are playing to support frontline nurses during the pandemic.
1. Enhancing Patient Care
Patient care is the top topic of debate among healthcare professionals. More people need a home care specialist than ever now. As the pandemic continues to soar high and above, healthcare professionals are still struggling with strategies to reduce the number of infections and enhance patient treatment. Meanwhile, the COVID-19 is reshaping the healthcare sector by forcing the sector to adapt to new ways of delivering patient care. The COVID-19 specific patients and other severe diseases also demand treatment and preventive measures. Moreover, today, patients also expect top-notch healthcare services. For that, nurse leaders are stepping in to promote better healthcare services and increase positive patient outcomes. They are engaging with the patient to understand their medical needs.
On the other side, the nurse leaders also work alongside the policymakers to design evidence-based practice for patient care. Evidence-based practice involves treatment that is safe and complies with the rules and regulations of the authorities. Moreover, it will also employ the latest technologies and data to provide effective and safe treatment. Especially when nurses are battling with the patients on the front lines, the nurse leaders are helping the team with new tools and data to support the medical care. This way, nurse leaders enhance medical care and ensure the safety of the frontline teams.
2. Advocating Nurses as Well as Patients
Another top role of the nurse leaders during the pandemic is advocacy. Be it the employees or the patient; nurse leaders stood their abilities to advocate at each level. Since pandemic is the major challenge today, it is impacting the overall healthcare sector. Meanwhile, there are four major concerns among the nurses that are adding severe challenges for healthcare. These include workload, shortage of safety equipment, providing care for the suspected and confirmed COVID-19 patients, and complying with the latest guidelines. The sudden changes in these factors lead to severe stress and fatigue that is a top concern globally. In this case, nurses need motivation and a leader's support to overcome the fear of contagion and workload.
Nurse leaders are coming forward to address the shortages and workload challenges to hire new professionals for the frontline roles. Moreover, they also support the employees to meet their demands for essentials like PPE's, family care, and training. Nurse leaders encourage the employees for the COVID-19 vaccine. Many people are still concerned about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine. Nurse leaders ensure the team's safety by providing the relevant information on how it works and reducing the spread of the virus.
3. Being More Accessible and Visionary
Apart from balancing the pressure of the nurses, being more accessible to the vulnerable healthcare location is also essential. Healthcare is a diverse sector with so much happening at one moment. Meanwhile, it is easy for the nurse teams to drift away from the crisis triumph without realizing the critical need at the frontlines.
On the other side, a pandemic never ends overnight. It means the nurses are prone to experience issues with work overload and exhaustion. Nurse leaders must play their role in setting the organization's vision and encouraging the nursing staff to stay on the path. They also enable their team to realize the severity of the pandemic and their expertise importance in the healthcare organization.
4. Communication
Communication is an essential part of the healthcare sector. Whether it is inter-professional or patient, communication is the key to find a solution to the problems. Meanwhile, with the rise in workload among the nurses, communication is the basic tenet that nurse leaders use to identify the challenges. Communication allows leaders to make the right decisions that focus on the team's betterment and patient care.
On the other side, patient engagement is also critical for enhanced medical care. Today, COVID-19 is causing a social stigma where people avoid hospitals because of the contagion fears. Nurse leaders communicate with them to reduce the anxiety and fear of clinical settings and medical care. Nurse leaders communicate with the public to protect themselves and their families from the deadly virus. This way, they can minimize the issues of stress and disease.
Final Words
Nurse leaders are the prominent healthcare figures that will continue to promote health prospects even after the pandemic. Today, nurse leaders are coming forward to set up redistribution strategies for healthcare organizations globally to reduce the strain while still tackle the soaring pandemic. This redistribution plan will reduce the strain on the overall healthcare sector while enhancing the needs of nurses working on the frontlines. It is hard to set the day when the pandemic will be over. But one thing is sure: the healthcare sector is even more prepared for the next pandemic than decades ago.
