Exercising Leadership as a Charge Nurse
At some point in their careers, many people are called upon to be leaders at some level. A personal example of this eventuality was my promotion to charge nurse in a hospital setting where I was required to exercise leadership in ways that improved health care, including a reduction in the noise levels of my ward to promote a restful and comfortable environment for inpatients. This paper describes this leadership experience, including the rationale in support of this intervention, a description of what actions were taken in response. In addition, an analysis of the barriers that were encountered during the implementation and administration of the noise level reduction intervention is followed by a discussion concerning what actions could have been taken to make...
Finally, a summary of the research and important findings concerning this leadership experience are presented in the
conclusion.
When I was promoted to charge nurse in a tertiary healthcare facility, one of the first issues that came to my attention was the high noise levels on my unit. The sources of noise included the hospital public address (PA) system, beepers and pagers, cellular telephones, IV alarms, carts rolling down hallways, staff members conducting conferences in hallways, and even patient room doors opening and closing. After conducting some preliminary research in the hospital library, I determined that noisy ward environments have been implicated in longer inpatient stays (Wenham & Pittard, 2009) and elevated
pain levels (Freedman, Kotzer & Schwab, 1999). Moreover, it was also determined that high noise levels on wards are routinely cited as the major complaint of patients discharged from hospitals (Hultman, Coakley, Annese & Bouvier, 2012; Patel, Chipman, Carlin & Shade, 2008).
Based on my preliminary findings, I prepared a noise-reduction proposal for my nursing unit which was presented to the director of nursing together with a memorandum outlining my rationale for change. Following a discussion of the intervention with the nursing director who questioned the cost-effectiveness of the intervention and its potential effects on staff and patients, the intervention was approved for implementation. The intervention consisted of a series of prominently displayed colorful posters created by the hospital's graphic arts department that encouraged staff members and patients alike to keep noise levels at a minimum. Staff members were requested to conduct conversations in closed rooms and turn pagers and beepers to vibrate only while on the unit,…
