Susan Gledhill
Australian Catholic University, Australia
Title: Educating nurse leaders who will drive innovation and practice improvement
Biography
Biography: Susan Gledhill
Abstract
Nurse leaders are required to inspire and lead their staff and guide them through an often challenging process of questioning, exploring possibilities, driving fresh ways of thinking, taking risks and collaborating with others, including consumers. Successful change management for practice improvement requires “a systematic approach to test new ideas and innovation … which are often based on the expectations of users of the service, as well as on prevailing socio-economic circumstances and policies” (Gopee & Galloway, 2014, p. 145).
Innovation for practice improvement is not a new phenomenon and history demonstrates the significant effect that a health practitioner can have, not only on improving practice and driving innovation, but also in demonstrating effective leadership skills (Barr & Dowding, 2016; Kelly, 2012). Contemporary challenges, and opportunities, for nurse leaders include integrated health care, regulatory factors, consumer expectations, building coalitions, workforce diversity and safety and quality improvement initiatives.
The question is therefore, what are the current challenges in educating potential nurse leaders who will model good governance, lead practice improvement and drive sustainable change? Innovative educational strategies that will be discussed include broad-based curriculum with exposure to multidisciplinary peer groups, supporting content delivery with technology, basing content on contemporary real-world situations and consolidating a ‘systems thinking’ approach to leadership