In Canada, the nursing shortage is all encompassing, and nurse leaders are needed from the bedside to the boardroom. Healthcare organizations and the nursing profession lag behind the corporate sector in development of strategic leadership succession planning. Contemporary nurse leaders will require all the knowledge, skills, attitudes and competencies their predecessors can provide.
Supportive nursing leadership is important for the successful introduction and implementation of advanced practice nursing roles in Canadian healthcare settings. For this paper, we drew on pertinent sections of a scoping review of literature and key informant interviews conducted for a decision support synthesis on advanced practice nursing to describe and explore organizational leadership in planning and implementing advanced practice nursing roles.
In 2008/2009, the Orientation: Transition to Public Health Nursing Toolkit was developed to enhance the integration of new hires into public health nursing practice in Ontario and to increase retention of these hires. The changing landscape of public health in Canada, such as the introduction of new standards and competencies, presents challenges to leaders orienting staff to public health nursing. The toolkit was designed to provide a standardized general orientation, involving a broad range of public health knowledge and issues.
The face of the healthcare CEO has been changing over the past decade, during which we have seen the emergence of a new breed in upper management, the clinical executive. These are healthcare professions who have often held previous leadership positions, such as chief nursing officer or VP of medicine, and whose career path has seen them progress towards the top job in their organization.
In order to excel in management. these clinicians have had to develop broad skill sets that are not part of the traditional clinical curriculum.
