A SCOPING REVIEW: The role of the nurse manager as represented in the missed care literature

Abstract

For fifteen years, the subject of missed nursing care has been a cause of concern for the profession of nursing and for researchers. Missed care is usually described as necessary patient care which is left undone, or incomplete due to lack of resources. Much of the research to date has focused on which types of care are missed, the structural and organizational antecedents, and the outcomes for patients, nurses and organizations. However, to date, the role of the nurse manager (NM) in relation to missed nursing care is largely unexplored. Nurses play a pivotal role in the provision of safe, high-quality care, and nurse managers (NMs) are integral to this process functioning as both managers and leaders within organizations (Weiss, Tappin, & Whitehead, 2015). As managers, they plan staffing and skill mix for optimum care, while maintaining focus on the strategic goals of the organization (Weiss et al., 2015). Likewise,

Strategies to prevent missed nursing care: An international qualitative study based upon a positive deviance approach

“…The different strategies reported as effective in preventing MNC require a redesign of the nurse leadership, over and above that recently underlined (McCauley et al., 2020) in terms of singular competences (e.g. in how to exhibit leadership and adaptability; how to implement quality and safety improvements; Leotsakos et al., 2014).…”

“…Previous literature has underlined the relevance of communication among nurses and other members of the staff at the unit level in order to facilitate a transparent climate that could enhance trust in reporting MNC (e.g. McCauley et al., 2020). However, given the systemic nature of MNC, promoting collaboration and cooperation also across units and with the external environment of the hospital, namely with citizens and the professional body, is recommended.…”

Nurse work environment and its impact on reasons for missed care, safety climate, and job satisfaction: A cross‐sectional study

“…Working in an environment with leadership support for nurses led them to report fewer reasons for missed nursing care relative to material and labour resources. Effective leadership and management can also decrease levels of missed nursing care (McCauley et al., 2020). Other studies have also found that the better the perception of labour and material resources, the less frequent the occurrence of missed care (Blackman et al., 2014; Cho et al., 2015; Smith et al., 2017).…”

“…Studies that evaluated relationships between the nurse work environment and omission of care identified that a lower occurrence of missed care can be linked to a better work environment (Carthon et al., 2015; Kim et al., 2018; Lake et al., 2019; Liu et al., 2018; Smith et al., 2017), adequate management and leadership skills (Kim et al., 2018; McCauley et al., 2020), and adequate material and human resources (Kim et al., 2018; Smith et al., 2017).…”

Missed or rationed nursing care: Where to now for the nurse manager?

“…Frequent predictors identified were the quality of the nurse work environment, teamwork, communication, resource adequacy (staffing and skill mix), workload, patient care needs, safety climate and culture, ethical climate and nurse job satisfaction (Kalisch et al., 2009a, Schubert et al., 2013, Blackman et al., 2018, Cho, Kim, Yeon, You, & Lee, 2015, Griffiths et al., 2018, Palese et al., 2015, Bragadottir, Kalisch, & Tryggvadottir, 2017, and Friese, Kalisch, & Lee, 2013). Interestingly, as evidenced in a scoping review contained in this issue, to date the nurse manager role has been largely absent in the literature on missed or rationed care (McCauley, Kirwan, Riklikiene, & Hinno 2020). This seems an obvious oversight, which fails to take into account the important role of the nurse manager in relation to planning patient care delivery.…”