The top three most common topics during the Nursing Management Congress last week included the changing role of nurses, changing care delivery, and which show to watch later that night.

Despite the place being Las Vegas, the almost 1,000 nurse managers as well as leaders came together for some networking and education and grabbed the opportunity to talk about the more pressing matters regarding health care reform and also the role of nursing that thrilled the lot more than the place itself.

Tim Porter-O Grady, the keynote speaker, spoke to the audience saying that it was high time that nurses choose what it will not do anymore in order for nurses to be able to concentrate on the more significant matters in the ever transforming façade of care delivery. He said that nurses have been too hooked both on protocols and rituals. Nursing simply cannot go on with its usual old deeds in the innovative field of healthcare reform along with purchasing that’s based on value. On the other hand, it’s about time to grip important changes.

Modify the fresh graduate nurse practice.

Whenever we set those nurses who have been around for too long, those who are the oldest and probably with the most experience, as preceptors to the fresh graduates, we kill the young ones in a way, Porter-O Grady said. Most of the time, these old preceptors can barely connect to the younger fresh grads. Instead of precepting them, he continued, mentoring should be started. As opposed to preceptorships, mentoring interactions is aware that new nurses can teach us as much as we can teach them, he said.

Show the way for the subsequent generation of nurses

The present group of nurse leaders has been assigned with heading the next generation towards a future that isn’t yet understood and that will never be fully occupied, according to Porter-O Grady. Clinging to the past makes it a barrier to living in the future.

Nurse leaders ought to grip on to technology along with its ability to modernize healthcare, instead of seeing it as something that has been imposed by others on nursing.

 Gauge value instead of volume

Porter-O Grady said that we are not staying any longer to an age of volume but are moving towards that of value. Nursing should end gauging itself in relation to volume and begin viewing at the value that it offers. It is the outcomes that they create, and this should be stressed, that makes nurses important to their organizations and not just because of the numerous tasks that they perform.

The role of nurse leaders is to distinguish the portions of the work that nurses perform that holds value and creates a difference and also those portions that do not fit in the RN role. This can be done by asking what effect the job has or if it has changed anything, said Porter-O Grady.

He continued to say that work in itself should have meaning, and not solely because one does it. Healthcare, and everyone should be aware, is more and more complex, and the only way to make the most of what nurses perform is by doing a smaller amount of the work that does not put in value, thus allowing for more time to the more complicated work that has value.

The forefront nursing leaders who were at last week’s conference are those who can aid organizations attain this vital distinction.