Creating an Interview Guide Essay Assignment
Phase 1: Creating an Interview Guide
In this Clinical Practice Experience (CPE), I managed to consult with our chief nursing officer (CNO). In some health organizations, these nurse executives are also called chief nurse executives (CNO). My healthcare organization has various nurses of various cadres, experience, and subdisciplines. I collaborated with the executive at the top of the hierarchy for nursing care management. Before the interview, my first task was to research the roles and responsibilities of this executive. The summary table below presents pieces of evidence from the top 5 sources that I reviewed in the process on the roles and responsibilities of a chief nursing officer Creating an Interview Guide Essay Assignment
Sources Table
| Source (Full APA reference) | Summary |
| Albert, D., Gruebling, N., Nuss, S. L., O’Shaughnessy, K., & Patton, H. P. (2021). The power in coming together. Nurse Leader, 19(6), 581–584. DOI link | This source is a journal article from a qualitative study by Albert et al. (2021) that assessed the experiences of CNO by interviewing three CNO during the COVID-19 pandemic era. During the peak of the pandemic, nursing administrators were looked upon for crucial decision-making regarding practice. The roles o CNO were put to test. In this source, nursing management communication and collaboration at the topmost nursing management hierarchy were reported. CNO from their different healthcare organizations is tasked with the responsibility of building trusting relationships between healthcare organizations to enhance inter-organizational collaboration. This collaboration is essential in learning, knowledge sharing, and evidence-based practice for nurses in their respective organizations |
| Barnsteiner, J., & Disch, J. (2018). Role of the chief nurse officer in ensuring person- and family-centered care. Nursing Administration Quarterly, 42(3), 284–290. DOI Link Creating an Interview Guide Essay Assignment | This journal article is explaining the role of CNO in patient and family-centered care (PFCC). PFCC is seen as an organizational initiative and CNO being the topmost nursing executive has the responsibility to initiate PFCC in the health organization. Because of their position in the organizational leadership, CNOs assume the role of PFCC coordination and organize appropriate efforts to trickle down the culture of PFCC to enhance nursing care quality. Specifically, CNOs organize and update organization documents and information regarding PFCC, schedule educational sessions with nurses, engage patients and their families in culturally sensitive care, establish communication feedback loops regularly, identify nurse leaders that can steer these initiatives, and secure organizational top executive support for this initiative |
| RegisteredNursing.org Staff Writers. (2019, July 26). Chief Nursing Officer. Registerednursing.org; RegisteredNursing.org. source URL | This resource is from a website by registerednursing.org. Registerednursing.org is a corporate organizational website that aims at informing and educating nurses about legal aspects, ethical aspects, and the scope of practice. This website succinctly lists 12 roles and duties of a CNO in nursing and healthcare practice. CNOs foster collaboration by enhancing a favorable environment, upholding nursing standards and compliance with healthcare policies and approvals, developing strategic plans in collaboration with senior organizational administrators and medical staff, and ensuring functioning relationships between various departments. They also ensure the organization’s mission, vision, and values are upheld by nursing practice, initiate and maintain quality assessment & improvement projects and programs, facilitate professional and educational advancements for nurses, oversee performance improvement projects, and ensure the best nurse-patient services. |
| Ingwell-Spolan, C. (2018). Chief Nursing Officers’ views on meeting the needs of the professional nurse: How this can affect patient outcomes. Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland), 6(2). DOI Link | This source is a journal article from a study by Ingwell-Spolan in 2018 conducted in Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. According to this qualitative study, CNOs’ roles are complex but aimed at patient-centered care through the coordination of roles of other nurses. CNOs offer nursing leadership, financial management, and infrastructural support to other nurses to enable them to meet patient care needs. CNOs have a responsibility in improving patient care outcomes and reducing their hospital stays by striving to reduce patient acuity, manage nurses’ workload, ensure nurse collaboration, and encourage nurses’ decision-making & autonomy. |
| Persolja, M., Marin, M., Caporale, L., Odasmini, B., Scarsini, S., Fiorella, V., De Lucia, P., & Palese, A. (2020). Chief Nurse Executives involuntary turnover in times of health care reforms: Findings from an interpretative phenomenology study. Health Services Management Research, 33(4), 172–185. DOI Link Creating an Interview Guide Essay Assignment | This source sought to find out the reasons for involuntary turnover for CNEs through an interpretative phenomenology study. In their literature review, key roles and responsibilities of CNEs are mentioned. CNEs have high managerial responsibilities in organizational administration. These responsibilities and roles include but are not limited to developing a professional environment, designing and leading projects, and mediating between professional nursing goals. Developing a professional environment includes integrating the organization’s mission, vision, values, and trust philosophy in nursing practice. Projects initiated and led by CNEs involve improving patient experience, safety, and thus quality. Keeping the organization’s focus on nursing goals promotes efficiency, effectiveness, and management. CNEs require adequate educational, professional, leadership, managerial, and clinical experience, knowledge, and skills to achieve the best outcomes in achieving their responsibilities and roles. |
Conclusion
The salient points from this summary confirm that CNO roles and responsibilities are more managerial than clinical. In most settings director of the nursing answer to the CNO who answer to the top executives in the healthcare organization. The welfare of the nurses and patients is in the CNO’s hands. The quality of care through nursing can be greatly influenced by this office. Creating an Interview Guide Essay Assignment
References
Albert, D., Gruebling, N., Nuss, S. L., O’Shaughnessy, K., & Patton, H. P. (2021). The power in coming together. Nurse Leader, 19(6), 581–584. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mnl.2021.08.010
Barnsteiner, J., & Disch, J. (2018). Role of the chief nurse officer in ensuring person- and family-centered care. Nursing Administration Quarterly, 42(3), 284–290. https://doi.org/10.1097/NAQ.0000000000000294
Ingwell-Spolan, C. (2018). Chief Nursing Officers’ views on meeting the needs of the professional nurse: How this can affect patient outcomes. Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland), 6(2), 56. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare6020056
Persolja, M., Marin, M., Caporale, L., Odasmini, B., Scarsini, S., Fiorella, V., De Lucia, P., & Palese, A. (2020). Chief Nurse Executives involuntary turnover in times of health care reforms: Findings from an interpretative phenomenology study. Health Services Management Research, 33(4), 172–185. https://doi.org/10.1177/0951484820923923
RegisteredNursing.org Staff Writers. (2019, July 26). Chief Nursing Officer. Registerednursing.org; RegisteredNursing.org.
Phase 3B Reflection
My CPE project has been successful I can say for sure that I have gained way more than I knew about CNOs before this CPE. The organization of this CPE was sequential and effective. I have gained important insights regarding the roles, responsibilities, requirements, and qualities of a chief nursing officer. Key insights gained include but are not limited to the process of organizing and executing an executive’s interview, planning and interview, key primary roles of a CNO, how to execute these key roles, and the key requirements to advance to the role of a CNO. I have learned about legal, ethical, educational, professional, and experiential achievements that I would need in the future to become a chief nursing officer in any facility. I feel this is important for me because my ambitions in nursing are to advance to the doctorial level and pursue an administrative career and or independent community-based practice. Creating an Interview Guide Essay Assignment
I have satisfactorily met most, if not entirely all, of my CPE objectives. Meeting phase 1 and 2 objectives were key to the success of my CPE. By meeting my phase 3 objectives, I capped the experience by learning the process of becoming a CNO. I learned about the need to rise through the ranks to finally become a CNO. I feel that this professional advancement will enable me to garner enough clinical and administrative experience to sharpen my leadership, communication, and decision-making capacities and skills.
One key challenge that I encountered was time allocation for my CPE. At some point, I had to adjust my CPE schedule table to complete all activities and meet the objectives. My preparation for the interviews was also challenged by anxiety being the first time having a semi-official conversation over teleconferencing with the most senior nurse administrator. Fortunately, I navigated these challenges and made an important rapport with the CNO. Creating an Interview Guide Essay Assignment
Phase 3B Executive Summary
Most chief nursing officers (CNOs) acquire certifications from the American Nurses Credentialing Center through American Nurse Association. They receive Nurse Executive Advanced (NEA-BC) certification upon application and meeting all set requirements. There are other certifications such as the certification for executive nursing practice (CENP) by the American Organization for Nursing Leadership (AONL), but the ANCC certification is the most used by CNOs. Another credentialing resource for CNOs is provided by The American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE). NEA-BC certification is done through the American Nurses Association website through this link.
Competencies and Responsibilities
CNO should be competent in patient safety, healthcare quality, communication, human resource management, financial management, and teamwork. A typical day for a CNO involves communicating with various professionals from different disciplines, managing human resources, preparing and managing budgets, managing various administrative tasks, and supervising nurses. To enhance the best decision-making practices, CNO should be competent in evidence-based practice and informatics
Primary Responsibilities
In general, CNOs are responsible for sustaining nursing standards in their respective health organizations. They can work in hospitals, clinics, government agencies, and rehabilitation centers. In these institutions, CNOs are in charge of advocacy for nurses, compliance with legal ®ulatory requirements, nursing networking & collaboration, advocacy for patients and populations, management of safety & quality, and financial & strategic planning. CNOs develop organizational nursing care goals & objectives, recruit nurses, improve efficiency & quality of nursing care, plan nursing budgets and monitor them, and represent the nursing faculty in higher levels of care.
Education
At the minimum, CNOs are required to have a master’s degree in nursing. Sometimes, the CNO applicants have master’s but not in nursing and thus are required to have doctoral or baccalaureate degrees in nursing. An additional master’s in business administration (MBA) is an added advantage to qualify for this office. The nurse should also complete the nursing certification examination. The examination according to the ANCC test outline includes human resource management, quality and safety, business management, and health care delivery experience. These include 125 scored and 25 pretest questions.
Experience
ANCC awards nurse applicants who have passed the certification examination and met all eligibility requirements with NE-BC certification. However, this certification is only valid for five years. CNOs are required to renew this certification thereafter. CNO should have valid and active RN licenses. Additionally, CNOs are required to have worked in administration in a mid-level administrative role before this advancement. Continuous education in nursing management is also required before applying for certification.
Skills
Various skills are required per the tests outlined by the ANCC certification. Some of these skills include employee engagement, performance management, continuous process improvement, evidence-based practice methods, nursing research skills, team performance management, staff scheduling, financial management, nursing leadership skills, care delivery evaluation, facilitation of patient experience, and technology evaluation. This information is provided by the American Nurses Association website and through their premium books and manuals Nursing Administration: Scope and Standards of Practice, 2nd Edition, and 2019 Magnet® Application Manual Creating an Interview Guide Essay Assignment
Phase 2 Reflection
Phase 2 of my CPE has been successful and more involving with interviews and notetaking. Phase 2 experience added more insights to the phase one experience. In phase 2 I had to practically observe the nurse executive perform some of the roles that I researched in the first phase of my CPE experience. I witnessed care coordination at the topmost level of nursing management. Project coordination and the need for collaboration in nursing care were evident from the observation of this nurse leader. I had an opportunity to observe the CNO perform time management by task prioritization using health information technology. Another new insight that I gained from this phase is active participation and collaboration. This nurse leader is not a stay-at-the-office nurse. She gets things done by being present physically. The role of synchronous communication also came out from the observation. Using phone communication to coordinate management and collaborate with other healthcare professionals seems to work best for the chief nursing officer. Quality improvement and management was the key responsibility that I observed from this nurse leader. Quality improvement projects are centrally managed, approved, and monitored from this office.
One of the insights that changed after phase 2 was nurse recruitment. Before this phase, I believed nurse recruitment was solely the role of the chief executive officer of this institution. After the interview, I realized that the CNO is the most important leader in this process. This is because she is the chief advocate for both nurses and patients in this healthcare organization. The need to have technological competency in this leadership position was also changed. It came out that technology was applied in every aspect of her duties. Communication, collaboration, coordination, time management, change management, and quality management all relied on technology. Creating an Interview Guide Essay Assignment
Phase 2c: Observation Reflection
My interviewee accepted my request to allow me to observe her doing her daily administrative office activities for 10 minutes. In her office, there are other administrators and workers. She is aware of this observation process and attempts to simulate her typical day as much as possible. The CNO explains that she is not a behind-the-scenes administrator and prefers to participate to see things done in the best legal and ethical ways. The first activity in her office is to interact with fellow workers at her office through greetings before she receives some files from her assistant. As she sits down, her assistant briefs her on various projects initiated from her office.
The next activity of the day was to check any alerts or notifications from her computer through the MS Excel application. This application contains a list of activities prioritized and planned using the computer’s artificial intelligence. As part of her weekly routine, she is set to meet various unit managers physically by visiting them in their units. She prefers to observe the environmental situations in various units for herself in various units to make her own assessments and decisions. She also has a meeting set for three hours with the hospital’s chief executive officer and the hospital board to discuss the new nurses’ recruitment process. Before the meeting, she reviews the previous day’s activities and unfinished tasks. Most of her communications with the other departments are made through a hospital telephone system. The CNO is jampacked and she seldom gets time to catch a breath. The observation ends with the CNO making calls to other departments to settle some collaborative activities that were unfinished from yesterday.
Phase 2A: the Interview
My interviewee was a chief nursing officer in my health organization. She has been a CNO for 7 years after being promoted from a nurse manager role in one of the units. Our interaction was through Zoom Meeting. She verbally consented to me writing notes summarizing her answers as she responded. This section of my CPE summarizes her responses from the third-party position to the interview guide question that I created in phase one. The interview did not follow the same order as they appear here but my interviewee was so cooperative and educative and thus, she answered all my questions.
- “Grand Tour” question: Can you describe the key responsibilities of your position as a chief nursing officer?
As a nurse officer, she is in charge of all nurses in the health organization. She oversees all nursing activities and represents all nurses in top administrative decision-making meetings. Her key roles include approving, initiating, monitoring, and evaluating nursing projects in the organization. She also participates in organizational plans through partnering with other departments of care such as laboratory, physicians, and social work departments. As the CNO, she is in charge of nursing care quality. Therefore, all quality improvement projects must include her input. She ensures that all nurses practice in a favorable environment in the organization. As a result, she must participate budgeting and planning process to ensure that the nursing department secures necessary equipment and materials for practice. Therefore, she doubles as a financial manager in the nursing department. Creating an Interview Guide Essay Assignment
- Who do you answer to the organization’s hierarchy? Lastly, what academic and professional achievements are required to hold an office like yours?
She answers directly to the chief executive officer of the institution. She is also a member of the institution’s board that oversees budgeting and top decision-making processes in the organization. She acknowledges other chief nursing officers work in different settings such as government agencies, corporate organizations allied to healthcare practice, and even physician clinics. To be a CNO, one requires adequate professional experience, educational qualifications, and licensure qualifications. One needs to have an RN’s licensure, certified by recognized institutions such as the Nurse Executive certification (NE-BC) usually done by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC). You also require at least 30 hours of continuous nursing education management in the past three years, at least a degree holder in bachelor’s in nursing, and management experience in a recognized healthcare organization
- Are involved in direct clinical patient care? If so, how do you balance administrative and clinical roles?
Her roles are majorly administrative and do not usually perform direct nursing care to patients. Occasionally, she visits the clinical areas to witness and monitor how care delivery is performed. She, therefore, has to put more effort and concentration on administrative duties to ensure clinical care is seamless and of good quality.
- How do you manage tasks and timelines with different levels of urgency and importance?
Technology use has assisted her greatly in organizing tasks. Through her assistant, she gets tasks priorities and organized in the MS Excel application from Microsoft. This technology alerts her of important tasks and their timelines to ensure that she doesn’t ignore impotent duties but also attends to less urgent tasks. Creating an Interview Guide Essay Assignment
- How do you solve issues involving ethical dilemmas among nurses and or other nurse leaders?
Collaboration has been key in her decision making and the basic principles and code of ethics of nurses still apply even to her level in decision making. Her decision-making is based on careful consultations and the use of her practice values and those of the organization to make final decisions. She also encourages nurses under her management to adopt the use of collaboration and dependence on the code of ethics for nurses for decision-making.
- Do you encounter conflicts among nurses under your jurisdiction and how do you solve them?
Conflicts are always present between nurses themselves or with other declines. Her approach still remains collaboration through dialogue as the best strategy to conflict resolution. Reference to organization values for practice has always been useful in conflict resolution. Sometimes she considers compromises to achieve amicable solutions in conflict resolutions.
- What other setbacks do you encounter as a chief nursing officer in this big institution? What are the strategies you have employed to overcome these setbacks?
She CNO acknowledges that nursing has received its fair share of the negative image from the public and that this has been a key issue in reconciling patients and nurses. Negotiating for her nurses remains a challenge. She has always encouraged patient collaboration among her nurses through their unit managers. Patient collaboration is believed to enhance patient-centered care that aims at quality improvement. Another big challenge is ethical decision-making in situations with dilemmas or involving legal implications which she sometimes involves external experts to assist with solution finding
- What administrative strategies do you put in place to enhance patient safety?
She has advocated for the purchase and implementation of various technologies to improve patient safety and nursing care delivery. Improvement in the institution’s electronic health record systems and patient care monitoring have improved under her administration. Interdisciplinary teams have now become a culture in nursing care despite a few setbacks from participation. She believes that interprofessional and interdisciplinary approaches have improved patient safety from the nursing perspective. All technologies must be verified from her office before they are implemented in nursing care. She believes that this has been a good quality assurance process that has improved quality care.
- How do you ensure patient-centered care from the administrative perspective?
She uses her administrative influence to communicate to all nurses through regular job aids that remind nurses of the need for patient-centered care and quality. She believes that this is the role of every nurse and they require regular educational updates on the same. The institution used bedside shift reporting that ensures patient-centered care. She allows for patients, their families or their caregivers to be engaged in patient care. The organization has patient satisfaction feedback from patients that inform her of the need for quality improvement and misses in patient safety control. Creating an Interview Guide Essay Assignment
- How do you ensure effective communication in your healthcare organization?
Nurse communication has been enabled through the use of technology and has made the process fast and efficient. Using smartphone technologies and software applications such as WhatsApp has improved both group and personal communications. The organization also has a communication system, the Tigger Connect, that is also being used by physicians and interprofessional teams for communication. All nurses are sensitized on how to use this communication system. She acknowledges that communication breakdowns and delays have contributed to conflicts and sometimes poor relationships among care professionals.
- As the topmost nurse administrator in the organization, have ever been called upon to participate in legal proceedings involving your nurses.
Occasionally she is called upon during conflict resolution processes of patient complaints to provide input in situations where nurses are involved. These have involved cases of patient care safety and social media use. Appearing in court for legal cases has been done through the institution’s lawyer.
- How do you ensure that your nurses are involved in interdisciplinary teams?
Nurses upon recruitment are sensitized about interdisciplinary approaches in the institution. At this point, they get acclimatized to the interdisciplinary culture and collaboration. Intradisciplinary continuous nursing education always involves interprofessional collaborations.
Interview Self-Assessment
Role and/or title of the Interviewee
The interviewee is the current chief nurse executive/officer in the health organization. She oversees all administrative matters about nursing care and practice. She advocates for nurses as well as patients on the organization’s top decision-making board.
My Perceptions of the Interview
The interview was an excellent opportunity to interact with the top nursing administrator and decision-makers. It also provided me with a chance to hone my interviewing skills involving my senior in practice. It was a two-way interactive interview. Creating an Interview Guide Essay Assignment
Challenges I Faced
At first, I experienced anxiety because of the experience gap and uncertainty about the interviewee’s response. With time the interview got interesting with the interviewee doing more of the talking. A lot of time was spent reading the questions and this added to the anxiety and sometimes delay the flow of the interaction.
What you might do differently to prepare and conduct interviews in the future
In the future, I will rehearse appropriately before the interview. This will minimize anxiety and enhance seamless flow.
CPE Phase 1 Reflection
Hello and welcome to the video on my experience with phase one of my Clinical Practice Experience. Successful completion of part 1 of my CPE was guided by the powerful literature acquisition, search, and appraisal skills that I have gained throughout my education, training, and experience as a nurse. It was an excellent idea to acquire knowledge from existing literature about the roles and responsibilities of my chosen nurse executive. my health organization is a big institution that offers primary and referral care in various healthcare fields. The nursing department has a set organogram with various administrators in different capacities. I contacted our topmost nurse executive for the interview and fortunately, she agreed. We then set a time and link for the meeting that is expected to be convenient for both parties. I must declare that effective communication played a critical role in this success because convincing the nurse leader to participate in my clinical practice experience requires accurate explanation and justification for needs.
I chose our chief nurse executive because I thought that her administrative capacity and jurisdiction are big and would provide me with greater insights into her roles and experience in a larger scope of management. She is in charge of the entire nursing department of the organization and would provide information on expertise from a greater scope. This does not mean that other nurse executives were not available or overlooked. In the selection of resources, I believe that I did well in selecting credible sources. I used the CRAAP model to select the most credible resources. CRAP model stands for current, relevant, accurate, authoritative, and purposeful resources. Healthcare practice keeps evolving and improving and so does the management of nursing as well. This model for credibility testing is easy to use and you can try it. It doesn’t take much time to find a credible source. Some organizations have different cadres of nurse executives from our organizations. I believe that the credible resources I reviewed and summarized improved my knowledge using the most current best practice and experiences of chief nursing officers in the United States. Creating an Interview Guide Essay Assignment
I used the summary from these sources to draft the interview guide that I will use in phase two to collect first-hand data from the horse’s mouth. My interview guide questions revolved around the roles and responsibilities of a chief nursing officer in patient-centered care, safety, collaboration, ethics of nursing, time management, patient safety, and effective communication. I believe that these concepts in acre practice are important in ensuring quality care. I think that initiating quality improvement from a top office like that of a chief nursing officer will be more effective. Roles are documented in various charters and regulations but how to execute these roles is important for me in my future as a nurse leader.
Phase one was a successful one and built a strong foundation for my CPE project. The only setback that I encountered was the fixed schedule of the interviewee which almost made the scheduling challenging. Our understanding and collaboration made an amicable solution an easy task. I can’t wait to execute my phase 2 pals using the interview guide and observe the interviewee as she performs some of her key tasks. I hope that phase 2 will be a walk in the park and I feel ready for it. Thank you for following my video reflection.
Interview Guide
Introductions and appreciation to the interviewee for accepting the invitation and honoring the interview time should precede the interview questions
- “Grand Tour” question: Can you describe the key responsibilities of your position as a chief nursing officer?
- Who do you answer to the organization hierarchy? Lastly, what academic and professional achievements are required to hold an office like yours?
- Are involved in direct clinical patient care? If so, how do you balance administrative and clinical roles?
- How do you manage tasks and timelines with different levels of urgency and importance?
- How do you solve issues involving ethical dilemmas among nurses and or other nurse leaders?
- Do you encounter conflicts among nurses under your jurisdiction and how do you solve them?
- What other setbacks do you encounter as a chief nursing officer in this big institution? Wat are the strategies you have employed to overcome these setbacks
- What administrative strategies do you put in place to enhance patient safety?
- How do you ensure patient-centered care from the administrative perspective?
- How do you ensure effective communication in your healthcare organization?
- As the topmost nurse administrator in the organization, have ever been called upon to participate in legal proceedings involving your nurses.
- How do you ensure that your nurses are involved in interdisciplinary teams? Creating an Interview Guide Essay Assignment
