Assessment task
Digital Presentation 10 minutes + 500 words
Weighting
30%
Read the scenario
You work in an aged care facility located in a rural township (population
8,000) in NSW. The town is located 50 km from the nearest larger town.
The facility provides care for 100 aged residents, many of whom are some
distance from their families and friends. The facility is staffed by
egistered, enrolled nurses and assistants in nursing, kitchen, cleaning
and administrative staff. A Director of Nursing, a Deputy Director of
nursing and a business manager oversee the operations of the facility. The
services of a diversional therapist, a physiotherapist, a pharmacist and
several doctors from the local general practice are also employed by the
facility.
In response to facility accreditation, the Director of Nursing at the facility
you work at is compelled to upgrade the facility’s documentation
practices. The accreditation team found that entries in each resident’s
ecord were infrequent and contained minimal information. Moreover,
each resident’s record was divided between six different folders: a
medication folder, a wound care folder, a nursing notes folder, a medical
notes folder, an allied health folder and a care plan folder. The lack of
integration was identified as creating a risk to the safety and quality of
esident care as a holistic and up to date picture of each resident’s health
status was impossible to ascertain. Visiting providers often had no
knowledge of the residents’ health status or responses to treatment and
depended on ve
al recounts provided by staff.
The Director of Nursing decided to ask one of the senior registered
nurses, Sam, to lead the practice changes required to address the issue.
Sam consulted with a friend at another Aged care facility, who gave advice
on what to do. Sam decided to merge all of the folders, with the exception
of the medication charts, together for each resident (100 folders), which
she completed over a weekend. On Monday when staff came to work,
they were presented with a memo advising them of the change, specific
times for records to be updated, and a sample of the appropriate
structure to use when writing a resident’s report.
During that week, episodes of confusion occu
ed as staff could not
access the record when required. Doctors were angry that their own notes
were not immediately available and mixed in with others. Nurses were
angry that were not getting off work on time as they had to wait until
others had finished with the record before they could make their own
entries. Some nurses didn’t bother waiting and went home leaving the
care undocumented, and were reprimanded by Sam when they returned.
The Director of Nursing ordered an audit in response to complaints and
found that the notes were more out of date than before, and that the lack
of consistency between the sections of the record remained an issue.
Furthermore, staff were angry stressed and negative about the change
and their lack of involvement. The Director of Nursing regretted not
providing more support to Sam with the change project and resolved to
enew the approach she had taken. Sam was happy for someone else to
lead the project and reflected on the importance of applying change
theory and principles of leadership for future change projects.
Task
The Director of Nursing has asked you to develop and present a plan to
lead the practice changes required to address the issue for review.
Using Lewin’s Change Theory (Unfreezing, Movement, Refreezing)
present how you will successfully implement change, maintain change
and avoid resistance to change.
Refer to the following principles of leadership to support your plan.
developing teams
nurturing positive workplace cultures
motivating team members
empowering team members
developing emotional intelligence
enabling effective change
Remember the focus is on leadership and not on the nuances of clinical
practice.
Relevance
Leading and participation in change in clinical practice is fundamental to
nursing work. This activity presents an opportunity for students to use a
theory of change management and gain knowledge of core leadership
principles. It is expected that this activity will foster deeper understanding
of change leadership in nursing contexts.
Learning Outcomes
1,2,3,4
Marking Instructions
Please refer to the marking ru
ic to guide your preparation of this
assessment.
Presentation guidelines
Powerpoint presentation with the audio function should be used for this
task.
The slides should inform and engage the viewe
Supporting evidence-based theory/literature and images should be
eferenced as per APA 7th CDU guidelines
Students can decide on the font appropriate for the slides, keeping in
mind that the use of italics, light coloured font and small size font can
make it slides difficult to read.
The audio should be clear and engaging with a clear message
Suggested lay out:
Introduction (2 slides)
What you propose will occur during the Unfreezing stage with implementation of relevant leadership principles (2 slides)
What you propose will occur during the Changing stage with implementation of relevant leadership principles   (2slides)
What you propose will occur during the refreezing stage with implementation of relevant leadership principles  (2slides)
Conclusion---in this instance a very short recap and thank you for listening type slide (1slide)
This is a rough guide, and it is by no means ridged (you can use whatever headings you like or feel flow well)