Home Articles How MSN-Prepared Nurses Are Driving Solutions to Staffing and Patient Care Issues

How MSN-Prepared Nurses Are Driving Solutions to Staffing and Patient Care Issues

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How much can an academic background affect someone’s work performance and trajectory? Well, if you ask many healthcare administrators and managers, they’ll probably tell you that degrees can make a huge impact on performance. That’s especially true in nursing, where advanced degrees can shape your career and your workplace environment.

Earning a Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) involves gaining specialized skills that many nurses and other healthcare professionals lack. MSN-prepared nurses boast clinical, leadership, and personal skills, each of which can make a huge difference.

However, these skills and experiences don’t solely affect the nurses who earn them. MSN-prepared nurses can uplift their fellow staff and the nurses they care for. Follow along as we explore how MSN-prepared nurses are driving solutions to staffing and patient care issues.

The Transformative Nature of MSN Nurses

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“You are the company you keep” is equally true in social and professional settings alike. Naturally, any hospital or clinic can benefit from staffing healthcare professionals with advanced degrees. That’s especially true of MSN-prepared nurses, who can influence their environment in many ways, including:

  1. Lead with Expertise

Without nurse leaders, the staff and patients alike won’t get the best possible experience. However, not just anyone is cut out for a healthcare leadership role, as it requires lots of skill and experience. Having an MSN makes you a strong candidate to become a nurse manager.

Collaboration is a big part of the MSN curriculum and programming. By the time you earn an MSN degree, you’ve likely collaborated with your peers and even led them many times. You also pick up many of these skills during a bachelor’s degree program, but building upon them in advanced courses solidifies such skills.

The soft skills you pick up between starting a bachelor’s program and finishing an MSN program are invaluable. Learning how to communicate, manage, and lead your peers can prepare you to do so under the sometimes stressful conditions nurse managers lead through. This, paired with on-the-job experience, ensures MSN-prepared nurses lead with expertise.

  1. Embody Adaptability

Healthcare is an ever-changing landscape, and having a strong foundation helps nurses navigate these conditions. This is something MSN-prepared nurses know all too well, from their time in school to their time on the job. The ability to adapt to policy changes, research results, and new treatment plans is essential in today’s healthcare system.

Those who cannot adapt may not only disrupt their peers but also fail to give their patients the best possible care. MSN nurses who work as nurse educators and managers can even help push for changes that affect their patients and fellow staff. Using your degrees and firsthand experience, you can make a strong case for new policies and treatment plans.

Similarly, you can help your peers adapt to outside changes that affect everything from workload and scheduling to patient care. Knowing how to apply your knowledge to new developments is essential in healthcare. Adaptable MSN-prepared nurses can help change many nursing issues.

  1. Maximize Operational Efficiency

Naturally, nursing is quite analytical, no matter what your title and rank are. However, advanced practice nurses (APRNs) understand this better than anyone, and their observations can help change how things are done. Sometimes, all it takes is an APRN with an MSN degree to make operational changes that affect all parties involved.

MSN-prepared nurses can observe patient data, treatment plan results, and nursing staff schedules, and make them more efficient. For example, an APRN can analyze a patient’s medical history and alter their treatment plan to prevent unnecessary appointments and yield better results. Not only does this boost patient satisfaction, but it can also free some space in waiting rooms and hospital beds.

Nurse leaders with MSN degrees can also help improve staff scheduling to prevent burnout and ensure the best performance. Staff satisfaction is ultimately as important as patient satisfaction, and making things more efficient behind the scenes can make this easier.

  1. Advocate for Patients

Approving treatment plans and diagnosing issues can help keep patients satisfied, but things aren’t always that simple. MSN-prepared nurses must sometimes go a step further in advocating for their patients, even if it means mediating communications with insurance providers. APRNs are well-respected, and people sometimes take them more seriously than certain patients, unfortunately.

While all patients should be heard, APRNs must speak up for them and help them get the best care. Sometimes, this involves going to bat for a patient, even if it means a respectful debate with an administrator. Using your status as an MSN can make a difference in your patients’ lives.

On a bigger scale, you can advocate for policy changes as an MSN-prepared nurse. After all, who can help implement better healthcare policies than skilled, passionate, advanced practice nurses?

MSN-Prepared Nurses Can Change Healthcare From Within

Some advanced nursing degree students may wonder whether or not the extra work will pay off. However, you don’t need to look much further than hospitals and clinics that staff MSN-prepared nurses for the answer. Advanced practice nurses are observant, caring, compassionate, and well-suited to make a big difference.

By caring for the staff as much as the patients, APRNs help ensure patient satisfaction while supporting their fellow nurses. Having a well-respected nursing degree can help you advance your career, so you can reach a position where you can make a difference.


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