Reflection of the Clinical Nurse Leader Nicole O'Neil
University of San Francisco CNL Role: Synthesis
Nursing 651
Reflection of the Clinical Nurse Leader
What does vocation mean to you? A calling? A voice within? At its purest form, vocation can be perceived as an inner calling that’s already been predetermined at birth. It is a direction that is destined for one’s life to go whether it wants to or not. From a very young age, I felt this purpose. This calling. This internal desire to fulfill a need I had in my heart. This
vocation I speak of? Nursing. Within this intertwined passion for nursing, caring for others, and impacting the lives of others, comes another internal calling, leadership. This passion is
ultimately what led me to apply to the Clinical Nurse Leader (CNL) program at University of San Francisco (USF) as this school was one of the few that offered an advanced degree for nursing with an emphasis on leadership, which again, is part of my purpose as a nurse. I chose USF because of it’s committed to bettering the community, with the promotion of health to all members of its community, which aligns with my personal mission and values in this profession. For these reasons, I did not select any other college of nursing to apply to. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to further define the writer’s personal meaning of the CNL program at USF, as well as elaborate on any encountered challenges, achievements, and future goals.
Looking back as I started this journey with my Master’s in Nursing and Clinical Nurse Leadership, I see how my vision has slowly transformed and enhanced over the years in my career, as well as in this program. Each and every course helped to build on my leadership foundation and prepared me to become a future CNL. One course in particular that inspired me the most was the community health course as public health, prevention, and community
were effective, and lastly, how to manage a team to ensure the change is sustained, which I found these competencies to be most beneficial in being a CNL within the community.
One project in particular that I completed in the Internship: Clinical Nurse Leader course that helped enhance my learning as an outcomes manager and patient advocator was the diabetes education project completed with my preceptor and I at Children’s Hospital of Orange County in the Fall 2015. During this project I was able to strengthen my clinical outcomes management skills through the following competencies: using evidence to design and direct system improvements that address trends in safety and quality; demonstrating the ability to develop and present a business plan, including a budget, for the implementation of a quality improvement project/initiative; and lastly, disseminating changes in practice and improvements in care outcomes to internal and external audiences.
well as the program’s listed objectives.
Over the course of this program, I achieved many CNL competencies and was successful in applying these competencies into practice. Through this program I was able to identify clinical and cost outcomes that improve safety, effectiveness, timeliness, efficiency, quality and client-centered care. This competency was completed by recommending group purchasing for the influenza vaccine in the 2014 flu season to save on cost and expense for my clinical
microsystem. Other achievements include the following: led an interdisciplinary meeting to advocate for group endorsements and report to enhance communication and create daily goals for patient care; evaluated current discharge instructions for diabetic patients and standardized by developing a tool to use for initial assessment and education for patients from frontline staff; and increased awareness of the prevention of C Diff infection by assessing the current process and in servicing to standardized prevention interventions, such as prohibiting residents with positive C Diff from participating in group activities, eating meals in shared location with other residents, and participating in group physical therapy interactions.
