Rethinking Resilience: Nurses and Nurse Leaders Emerging From the Post-COVID-19 Environment.

Nurses and nurse leaders are working in unprecedented intense and demanding environments, and the COVID-19 pandemic continues to place strain on their mental well-being. If stressful work conditions remain at extraordinary high levels, nurses and leaders may ultimately leave their positions, creating even more uncertainty in the workforce. Enhancing individual resilience has become a superficial response in retaining nurses during a global nursing shortage. We argue that resilience is not solely an individual responsibility. Rather, resilience it is a mutual responsibility between the individual and the organization. In this article, we discuss how nurse leaders can foster organizational resilience while also enhancing their own individual resilience within the current pandemic environment, and as we transition to a post-COVID environment.

Surge Planning and Implementation: A Required Competency for Today's Nurse Leaders.

The ability to respond effectively and efficiently during times of crisis, including a pandemic, has emerged as a competency for nurse leaders. This article describes one institution's experience using the American Organization of Nurse Leaders Competencies for Nurse Executives in operationalizing the concept of surge capacity.

Boundary Spanning Leadership in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Experience of Nurse Leaders in a Large Integrated Long-term Health Care System.

This article provides insight into the impact of boundary spanning for nurse leaders in a large integrated post-acute health care system in the southeastern part of the United States as they responded (not reacted) to the COVID-19 pandemic that threatened the lives of 2 of society's most vulnerable populations, the elderly and the disabled. Through illustrative examples, the authors describe the 6 strategies of boundary spanning leadership-buffering, reflecting, connecting, mobilizing, weaving, and transforming-that enabled these nurse leaders to respond effectively during this crisis. The literature informs on the merit of situational leadership, as no single type of leadership is right for all circumstances. Today's new novel pandemic served as a powerful catalyst for a group of nurse leaders in a large non-acute network of health care organizations, their colleagues, and other key stakeholders to reframe the boundaries that existed between their organizations and associations, thus enabling them to successfully problem solve together to accomplish several high-stakes goals.

[COVID 19: Nursing Leadership and innovations on the field to face the pandemic]. / COVID 19: Leadership infermieristica e innovazioni sul campo per affrontare la pandemia.

INTRODUCTION: In the Italian and European literature there are still few studies describing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the organization of nursing care in hospitals, on the actions taken by nursing leaders to contain it, and on the outcomes of these interventions. AIM: To describe nursing leaders' experiences with reorganizing healthcare pathways, through management data and personal accounts. METHODS: A retrospective quali-quantitative observational study was conducted at the Mauriziano Hospital in Turin, with 484 beds and over 1,700 workers. Quantitative data were analyzed through descriptive statistical indices and integrated with qualitative data collected through semi-structured telephone interviews. The analysis of the quantitative and qualitative data provided an objective and experiential representation of the implemented interventions. RESULTS: We described the impact of interventions introduced by the nursing leadership during the pandemic on hospital services. In particular, the reorganization of the emergency department and of the prevention and psychological support services for the hospital's health workers. In addition, specific initiatives to support the discharge of COVID-19 positive patients, and to support and manage contacts with family members both during the hospitalization of their loved ones and following death are described. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: This study contributes to the discussion on some crucial issues: the increasingly clear relationship between adequate staffing and safety of patients and professionals, the importance of a good working environment and a solid leadership, the importance of continuing education for professionals and adequate skill mixes; all highlighted by the pandemic.

Leading Through Chaos: Perspectives From Nurse Executives.

The COVID-19 crisis created unique and interesting challenges for health care systems and changed how health care professionals delivered care. Evidence suggests that leadership skills remain of utmost importance during crises as it is the leader who often determines the response of the follower. A descriptive qualitative approach was used to ascertain the essence of nurse executive leadership and innovation during the COVID-19 crisis. Nurse executives were recruited via personal invitations to participate in the study. Participants were asked about their current challenges of COVID-19 on health care delivery, their leadership style, and what innovative processes their teams deployed. Using a thematic analysis approach, 3 themes emerged and resonated from the interviews: the importance of communication; the need for leadership presence; and mental toughness. With any health care crisis, leadership is essential to guide followers. As demonstrated by these findings, communication, leadership presence, and mental toughness are 3 key components to promoting and providing quality care in an austere, complex, and changing health care environment. Further understanding of the roles of these key concepts may add insight into nurse leaders and leadership development.

Leveraging Professional Governance During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Dynamic nursing leadership and engagement of nursing at all levels are critical to effective care delivery. During the COVID-19 crisis, many organizations suspended non-COVID-related meetings, including professional governance councils where practice decisions are made. This article highlights how shared or professional governance was leveraged during this global pandemic at a large academic medical center and community hospital effectively sustaining autonomous nursing practice while responding to a rapidly changing environment and impacting quality patient care.

Shared Governance in Times of Change.

A strong shared governance framework gives nurses control over their practice. Whether unit based or system wide, shared governance provides the infrastructure to deliver high-quality patient care, especially in a crisis. This month's Magnet® Perspectives column takes a closer look at the concept of shared governance, how it has evolved, why it is important, and how it helped nurses in Magnet hospitals navigate the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. We explore the critical nature of ensuring that everyone's voice is heard to not only survive but also ultimately thrive during times of change.

An Executive Strategy to Support Long-Term Clinician Engagement Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has left frontline staff burned out and exhausted. Meanwhile, executives need to ask more of their staff to ensure organizational viability. In this article, the authors propose that executives commit to taking specific actions to create a more supportive work environment and form an executive-clinician compact. This article outlines the 5 actions executives should take to bolster staff engagement and resilience long-term.

An illumination of the ICN's core competencies in disaster nursing version 2.0: Advanced nursing response to COVID-19 outbreak in China.

AIM: This study aims to report on the actions and incident management of the advanced practice nurses of a disaster operation team who were deployed in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, and to explore how it illustrated the Core Competencies in Disaster Nursing Version 2.0 delineated by the International Council of Nurses in 2019. METHODS: This is a descriptive study. The participants (responders) communicated and reported their actions in the operation with headquarter on a popular social media platform in China (WeChat), established specifically for the three-rescue teams. RESULTS: The response approach of advanced nurses to COVID-19 encompassed six of the eight domains of the competencies outlined in ICN CCDN V2.0, namely on preparation and planning, communication, incident management systems, safety and security, assessment and intervention. CONCLUSIONS: The response teams of advanced practice nurses in this study clearly demonstrated their competencies in disaster rescue, which fulfilled most of the core competencies set forth by the ICN. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: The findings of this study contributed to understand the roles played by advanced practice nurses and nurse managers in disaster management and how these relate to the competencies set forth by the ICN.

Roles of nurses and National Nurses Associations in combating COVID-19: Taiwan experience.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to expand worldwide, Taiwan has effectively contained the spread domestically and protected its citizens after registering its first case relatively early on 21 January 2020. Proactive preparedness and deployment by the national government, timely evidence and experience-based judgements and decision-making, information transparency, rapid response, and effective communication and measures have all been critical to combating COVID-19 in Taiwan. Nurses play a pivotal role in providing direct health care as well as providing contact tracing and care for the quarantined clients and community care services. The Taiwan Nurses Association and other nurses' associations serve a vital leadership role in advocating for nurses, raising public awareness, enhancing nursing's professional profile, and sharing experiences via national and international platforms. The implications for nursing and health policy are that we need to well prepare for any unpredicted emerging pandemic in the future. Providing adequate personal protective equipment and safe staffing should be the highest priority for the governments and policymakers around the world to combat pandemic successfully.

Getting the COVID-19 pandemic into perspective: a nursing imperative.

As we approach the seventh month of the latest pandemic to wreak havoc and death across all societies, it beggars belief that many world and national leaders have acted surprised at the speed and destructive efficiency of COVID-19. Nurses are not surprised by the level of misery and devastation that infectious diseases can cause. We have seen it all before. In every outbreak through history, nurses have responded to the dangers that direct engagement with such crises entails. The inherent risks nurses face in controlling potentially fatal pathogens are compounded by flaccid public policy and incompetent management, resulting in poorly resourced preparedness for the epidemics and pandemics that routinely punctuate our history. That nurses are repeatedly placed in such precarious work environments is an indictment on all involved. Over time, nurses responding to populations in crisis have learned not to rely too heavily on those occupying leadership positions for front-line resources and protection or even early warnings or open disclosure about contagion risk, case numbers and outcomes. Once the danger has passed, the usual public expressions of gratitude for nurses who put themselves in harm's way to help victims of these catastrophes seem to fade, amid hasty efforts to consolidate policies, processes and hierarchies back to the same settings that allowed the current crisis to flourish. So far in this pandemic, an unconfirmed number of nurses and other health workers have either died usually as a result of their involvement with infectious patients or become infected themselves. Data collection on this is haphazard at best, with nurse deaths absorbed within the aggregated morbidity data reported on during pandemics. This is despite nurses being the prominent professional workforce providing crucial front-line interventions to protect public health. It is time nurses involved themselves with the overdue reformation of public health policies, information management and health systems that would seek to return nurses to precarious work environments and trivialize foreseeable risks to us, our communities and patients.