Role Concepts in Healthcare

Tasks:
1. Professional socialization relates to the manner in which we learn the roles and functions of being a nurse once we enter the healthcare system. What are some of the ways this socialization occurs in your place of employment, and do you believe it leads to effective assumption of the nursing role? This socialization occurs in a patriarchal healthcare system that still remains predominantly male physician-based. Discuss the impact, you believe, this has on socialization to the nursing role.

Need Help Writing an Essay?

Tell us about your assignment and we will find the best writer for your paper.

Get Help Now

2. Identify an area of practice where change theory may find applicability. Provide examples to support your answer. Comment on the inherent weaknesses in change theory that may impact real life situations or give rise to difficulties in the process of applying this theory.
WEEK 5 SCHOOL RESOURSES
Role Concepts in Healthcare
Role theory is the product of interdisciplinary theory development that includes anthropology, sociology, and social psychology. It contains concepts and propositional statements that address specific aspects of social behavior, the goal of which is the understanding and explanation of social order. Role theory seeks to predict how individuals will perform in a given role. Nursing role can be interpreted as a normative structure learned and internalized during the process of professional socialization in nursing. Socialization occurs as role occupants interact with others in related positions.

Socialization is the process by which individuals acquire the knowledge, skills, attitudes, values, motivations, and patterns that shape their adaptation to the setting in which they live and work. It is viewed as an interactional-reciprocal process in which the person being socialized and the socializer are mutually influenced. The process includes the learning of motor and language skills, social roles, moral norms and values, affective and cognitive modes of functioning. The goal is attainment of competence in performance of the role in order to be accepted by society. Socializing agents are family, authority figures, peers, and institutions, and the process is a means of transmitting learning to the person being socialized. The primary focus is on occupational, marital, and parental roles.

Socialization is a continuous and cumulative process. Nursing professionals are constantly dealing with staff members, patients, and their families. The nature of their work calls for a certain amount of socialization in order to be able to interact effectively with colleagues, patients and their families. For example, the improved technical skills and competencies of a new nurse is the result of socialization. A nurse, who is not comfortable with electrocardiographic interpretations or handling pulmonary catheters, gains confidence after getting some assistance from experienced staff nurses. Similarly, changes in the affective domain are also the result of socialization.

Sources of Role Strain in Nursing:
From typology, let’s move on to examine some of the assumptions of the role theory:

· People seek problematic, challenging situations in which they may use their skills and knowledge.

· People are predisposed to actualizing their own potential.

· Conflict is necessary for progress and the development of consensus in a social system.

· Conflict and challenge facilitate individual growth.

· Role difficulties and problems are neither abnormal nor undesirable.

In the light of these assumptions, consider some of conditions that contribute to role strain in the nursing profession:

· Socialization deficit—lack of adequate socialization for the role or for status changes within the role, such as promotions

· Role differentiation—changes in the role due to changing technology, increased organizational complexity, change in output expected by the organization

· Role transition—movement from old roles to newly developing roles

The primary sources of role strain for nurses include role conflict and role ambiguity.

Role conflict
· The role occupant is confronted with conflicting expectations that are mutually exclusive and therefore impossible to carry out.

· The role occupant is a member of different groups and has a different role in each, the expectations for which may be mutually exclusive.

· Role partners may have different expectations for role occupant.

· Role expectations of subroles may be incompatible.

· Conflict is inevitable in organizations.

Role Ambiguity
· Role expectations are vague.

· There is disagreement on the expectations for a particular role.

· Goals of administration and professionals are often significantly different.

· Some ambiguity is characteristic of all professional roles; technical roles are more defined with clearer expectations.

· Professionals often do not deal with the uncertain and the unexpected.

· Ambiguity is a challenge to professional skills and demands creativity.

· Ambiguity is even more detrimental to role performance than role conflict.

We have all experienced role stress and role strain in our work lives. In your work environment, what do you feel are some the contributing factors? How have these contributed to role strain in your present work?

Change Theory:
The nature of organizations is such that success in one area inevitably produces problems in another. Organizations, whatever their specific purpose, facilitate the production of dilemmas. Therefore, there is always a need for change and change management to affect growth and profits. The goal is to enhance change-facilitating forces while effectively diminishing the restraining forces.

However, organizations change as little as they must, rather than as much as they should.

Is planned change in complex organizations possible? Or do enormous internal and external forces overcome any attempt to control them?

There are limits to the potential for change.

· Not everyone has the power to effect change.

· Change cannot be ordered to happen.

· Conflicts of interests may resist change.

The need for change may make it harder to change.

· Adversity produces a sense of necessity for change that promotes innovation.

· However, scarcity of resources creates a climate less likely to utilize innovation than abundance.

· The ability of an organization to change significantly appears greatest when inclination to change is least.

· In times of plenty, these are increased resources for change but less necessity.

Meaning of Intentional/Planned Change
According to Kurt Lewin’s change theory in the 1940s, change was movement between discrete, fixed states. The classic model was of the system unfreezing, changing, and refreezing. This is no longer considered to be accurate, as systems and organizations never freeze. They are dynamic, always in a state of flux, and the stages of change constantly overlap.

What is the reality?

Organizations are always in motion. Change is always occurring, whether guided by the leaders or not. Change is not always planned nor desired. Those involved in controlling events or guiding change must always be aware of the nature of the networks within and around organizations. Forces that prompt change include the relationship of the organization with its environment, growth during its life cycle, and its internal and external struggle for power.

Change is ubiquitous in healthcare as an industry and within our organizations. Do you know what the big three model of change is all about?

The Big Three Theory of Change:
The big three theory of change is the result of groundbreaking efforts by Rosabeth Moss Kanter—professor at the Harvard Business School. This theory focuses on various components that institute change in organizations.

The Big Three Theory of Change comprises:
· Three kinds of movement

· Three forms of change

· Three action roles in the change process

Types of Movement
Movement can be:

· Macroevolutionary—historical, related to whole industries, the movement of an organization as it relates to motion in its environment. The environment is always shifting due to geographical, political, economic, demographic, and social realties.

· Microevolutionary—developmental, related to the movement of parts of the organization as it grows, ages, and progresses through its life cycle. Momentum is created in an organization as it increases in size, and its members, values, and practices change.

· Revolutionary—the manipulation and struggle for power and control to make decisions or attain benefits from the organization. Over time, different stakeholders advance their own interests and make claims on the organization’s resources.

Forms of Change
Change relates to:

· Identity—changes in the relationships between the organization and its environment; its assets and market; its relationships to customers and other organizations.

· Coordination—changes which involve the internal parts or configuration of an organization; the problems of shape and structure as it grows and ages.

· Control—changes that stress the political dimension; which coalition is dominant in the organization, which set of interests predominate, who governs and sets strategy; ownership.

Action Roles
Action roles can be as:

· Change strategists—concerned with the organization’s direction and the connection between the organization and its environment; usually found in top leaders at the beginning of a change sequence.

· Change implementers—responsible for the change effort itself, concerned with internal organizational structure and coordination; usually the mid-level managers in the middle of the change sequence.

· Change recipients—those most strongly affected by the change and its implementation but without the opportunity to influence those effects; organizational staff at the end of the change sequence.

Nursing professionals don’t work in a vacuum. They create a framework for change within their work environment. For example, the culture change movement pioneered by Stephen Shields—president and CEO of the Meadowlark Hills retirement community in Manhattan, Kansas—has brought a radical transformation in the way patients are treated in long-term care facilities. This movement believes in moving away from the assembly-line approach to treating patients; to that of warm household community, where the patient and staff build a life together. The big three theory of change can be an important tool to affect change and influence certain health policy decisions.

The Future of Nursing
The future of nursing is rooted in the past and the two are linked together by a number of events and trends. As you traced the evolution of nursing theory from the philosophical underpinnings of ways of knowing in nursing and various nursing theoretical frameworks to the application of theory to education, practice, and research, you will have noticed that a number of trends have marked the different periods of the history of nursing. Contemporary nursing has come a long way since the era of Florence Nightingale who established the foundation for modern nursing.

Though theories have often been accused of being vague and lacking in simplicity and clarity, they have always been used by professionals to prescribe and predict nursing practice. This course on Advanced Theoretical Perspective sought to provide you with a nursing perspective to examine clinical situations, education, and research. Gaining an understanding of the theoretical base of nursing, the process of theory development, and its relation to empirical research will enable you to structure your ideas as you interpret the connection between theory and practice.

This course gave you an opportunity to work on a group presentation, theory critique, and concept paper, which allowed you to analyze and evaluate nursing conceptualizations. Your group presentation helped you develop your skills in collaborative work, while you tried to understand the scientific nature of nursing concepts. The theory critique exercise sharpened your analytical skills as you critically evaluated your chosen nursing theory and examined its relevance to research, practice, and education. Your concept paper furthered your philosophical enquiry and gave you a better understanding of the concepts that underlie your personal philosophy for professional nursing practice.

The post Role Concepts in Healthcare appeared first on Myessaythinkers.com.