Nursing Management Topic

SteveNNP, MSN, NP · Feb 2, 2007

post deleted---duplicate

SteveNNP, MSN, NP · Feb 2, 2007

If the topic is nursing management, I think it would be interesting if you examined in your paper the delicate balance a manager must maintain between developing a bond with his/her employees and yet maintaining the respect and authority needed to run a tight ship.....just my 2 cents (maybe too boring??)

nitesky83 · Feb 2, 2007

I like the topic but I have to use nursing journals and it's not easy to find many on something like that.

Maybe delegation?

I dunno... this is difficult!

abundantjoy07, RN · Feb 3, 2007

I'd look in my management book and read a chapter that is interesting to me and elaborate on some concepts or questions posed in the book. It's a great source to use when starting a paper.

Daytonite, BSN, RN · Feb 3, 2007

does this have to be regarding management of staff or management of patients? i think that one of the interesting nursing positions that has come about with the prospective payment systems (drgs, apcs, managed care, hmos) has been the case manager. these nurses have to walk a very interesting line. on one hand they have to advocate for the care of the patient. on the other, they have to see to it that resource utilization (a fancy way of saying costs) are kept to a minimum. they often need to know medicare payment rules (if they know that the patient's primary insurer is medicare), medicaid rules (if medicaid is the primary payer) and/or specific private insurance company payment guidelines (i.e. blue cross). utilization review nurses are a type of resource management tool used by many acute hospitals. these nurses are specifically watching to see that medicare guidelines are being followed in the documentation and treatment of medicare patients to ensure that not only that the patients are getting proper care, but that the hospital is also going to be able to collect their reimbursement from medicare. these jobs are not very well understood by many nurses at the staff level, yet they are nursing management, to be sure.

another topic you might want to tackle would be just what is expected of a nursing unit manager. when i first became a unit manager, boy!, were my eyes opened. i had no idea what was involved in this position. you are not going to find information on this in regular nursing journals read by staff nurses. you are going to have to look to journals that specifically target nurse managers. yes, there are such publications. you will find a number of them with links to their publications listed on this page:

http://www.nursingcenter.com/library/index.asp#journals

llg, PhD, RN · Feb 3, 2007

I like the topic but I have to use nursing journals and it's not easy to find many on something like that.
Maybe delegation?
I dunno... this is difficult!

If you are concerned about having the necessary resources to write the paper readily available, then THAT's where you should start. Go to the library and browse several issues of the major nursing journals. See what's "out there" in the literature for you to use. That browsing exercise will give you a clue as to what topics are considered important by the people who work in that field (the authors, editors, and regular readers of the journals). It will also assure that you will have the resources you need to write the paper.

Too many students make a big mistake when they choose a topic for a paper. The start with thinking about some topic that sounds interesting without considering whether or not there is sufficient literature on the topic to complete their assignment. They should be surveying the literature to familiarize themselves with the general field as they thinking, incorporating what they learn from browsing the literature into their choice.

It's like making a meal when you are stranded on a desserted island. It would be silly to think, "Hmmm... what do I want for dinner?" and then go out and expect to find the ingrediants for a great meal just sitting there waiting for you. Instead, you would say, "Hm..... what's available on this island that I can eat?"

Unless you are a highly skilled, experienced nursing scholar prepared to forge new ground with original work, you should look at the literature BEFORE you pick a topic rather than wait until afterwards and then expect to find exactly what you want just sitting there waiting conveniently for you find.

llg