Management competencies for the manager nurse role

Abstract

There are numerous modifications that health has suffered in recent years, in an attempt to adapt to the growing demands by globalization and competitiveness. The public sector is no exception, it is essential that its administration adapts to the new contingencies. It will be crucial to invest in people, to change the value system and also to modify the prevailing models of leadership in organizations (Carapeto & Fonseca, 2006). Nurses with management functions, such as health professionals members of the National Health Service (NHS) should be prepared to deal with the constant technological, organizational and human changes (eg Ruthes & Cunha, 2009), and to develop the necessary skills for the best performance of their duties. A nursing career in Portugal is legislated into two categories: the Nurse and the Principal Nurse (Decree-Law 247/2009 and Legislative Decree 248/2009 of 22 September). Classified as a Primary Nurse management functions are provided in the NHS. The Order of Nurses (OE) presented a paper in October 2003, which are defined as "skills of nurses General Care." The second category, the Principal Nurse, despite being regulated by the legislation mentioned, and its functional content being described is not yet operationalized. Thus, dissecting the descriptive function of Principal Nurse, we find that this, in addition to the functions inherent to the category of Nurse assumes other related to the management of the health care delivery process. It is also foreseen that the nurses office bearers of intermediate structure of the NHS (Decree-Law 247/2009 of 22 September) or with leadership positions appointed on commission organizations, for the intermediate structures of the NHS organizations (Decree 248/2009-law of September 22) will have to be privileged Nurses Key. Framed the need to adapt to changing circumstances and the need to operationalize some of the functions of Principal Nurse, the objective of this work is to understand what the state of the art on the skills most valued management for nurses with management functions. For this, we carried out a literature review in several databases of scientific publications in nature, after 2005, with the descriptors "skills", "nursing management", "nurse manager", "nursing management", "competencies". Many studies found, we focus our attention on specific tasks in the area of nursing that compared with work on management skills in other professional activities. We conclude by listing the most referenced in the literature skills. This work constitutes as an initial step towards the identification of the most important skills of nurses with management functions in Portugal study. Directions for future studies are given.