Defining the revolutionaries in nursing, one must mention Betty Smith Williams as one of the most prominent contemporary contributors to the development thereof. Born July 22, 1929, she has the Doctoral Degree (UCLA) in Public Health, the Master Degree (Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland OH) in Nursing, and the Bachelor of Science Degree (Howard University, Washington DC) in Zoology (Case Western Reserve University, 2016). In 1971, she became one of the cofounders of the Council of Black Nurses, therefore, inspiring the members of the African-American community for integrity and collaboration. In 1998, Williams co-founded another organization enhancing cooperation among African-American nurses, National Coalition of Ethnic Minority Nurse Associations, Inc. (Betty Smith Williams, DrPH, MN, MSN, RN, FAAN, n. d.).
As a manager in nursing, Williams was in charge of the West Coast nursing facility, redistributing roles and responsibilities among the local staff according to the principles of diversity. The leadership aspect of her work included promoting cultural diversity in the designated environment. By putting an especial emphasis on the significance of cultural competency in nursing, she created the framework for addressing the needs of patients from different ethnic backgrounds. Therefore, Williams deserves the title of a visionary leader, who transformed the very philosophy of nursing, making it more patient-focused (National Black Nurses Association, Inc., n. d.). Primarily, her role includes being a model for nurses all over the world. Additionally, she plays the role of a mentor of the nursing staff. Williams’ responsibilities, in their turn, include impacting change in the designated environment, enhancing diversity, and encouraging collective action among nurses across the globe. Being the President of the National Coalition of Ethnic Minority Nurse Associations, Inc. (NCEMNA) now, Williams follows the principles of leadership such as enhancing the change process, encouraging further knowledge acquisition, and introducing commitment as an efficient tool for problem-solving and conflict resolution (Young, Landstrom, & Rosenberger, 2015). Her management functions include coordinating the processes at NCEMNA. Promoting change in nursing is a challenging task, yet Betty Smith Williams managed to reinvent the nursing environment by putting a heavy emphasis on collaboration, activism, and collectivism.
Despite the stellar change accomplished by Williams, African-American nurses are still facing significant challenges in the target setting. First and most obvious, the issue of being underrepresented in the nursing field remains a thorough impediment on their way to becoming proficient in the chosen area (Loftin, Newman, Dumas, Gilden, & Bond, 2012). In addition, African-American nurses are likely to experience the lack of media attention in the future, since they receive little to no thereof at present (Broussard & Paul, 2014).
It should be borne in mind, though, that the process of becoming a leader in the current nursing environment is going to be rather intricate. To play the role thereof, one must have an impact on people. Moreover, one has to design an elaborate strategy that will help promote changes. The current stereotypes regarding African-American people, in their turn, may become impediments to executing change. The possibility of a positive outcome, which will imply a significant increase in the overall nursing service quality, however, compensates for the time and effort to be spent (MacPhee, Chang, Lee, & Spiri, 2013).
Although the challenges listed above are rather big, it is still crucial to introduce changes to the realm of nursing so that the quality of services could be improved. First and most obvious, the introduction of African-American nurses into the target setting will help improve the quality of services provided to Black patients (Babalola et al., 2013). Thus, the communication process between a nurse and a patient can be improved significantly. Moreover, on a general level, the focus on the patient and their needs that African-American nurses promote will improve the overall quality of nursing services by reinforcing the significance of the patient-focused strategy (Rivera et al., 2013).
The change that Williams made to the nursing environment demonstrates the relationship between issues in nursing and nursing roles quite graphically. As Betty Smith Williams raised the issue of providing adequate care to the patients belonging to diverse backgrounds, e.g., the African-American one, the role of a nurse as an educator and a coach became topical (Williams, Fulbrook, Kleinpell, Schmollgruber, & Alberto, 2015). Used to be neglected, the above role became the focus of nursing once again as Williams promoted a diversity-based approach
The changes brought to the nursing area by Williams have had a crucial effect on the theory of nursing, in general, as the records of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) show. Over the past few decades, the focus of the nursing services has been on the provision of patient-focused care and the identification of problems that are typical for patients belonging to a specific ethnicity (National Black Nurses Association, Inc., 2016). The changes in the IOM policy, therefore, have had a significant impact on the efficiency of tending to the needs of particular communities: “As a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee College of Nursing, Ms. Hill is examining an often neglected population: teens born with HIV, a majority of whom are African-American and Hispanic” (The National Academic Press, 2011, par. 157).
Unfortunately, even with the immense change that Betty Smith Williams has made to the designated area, racial and ethnic prejudices still exist in nursing (Campbell, 2015). The current healthcare disparities also concern the issue of ethnicity and race: “The underrepresentation of racial/ethnic minority nurses in influential leadership roles creates yet another concern with regard to eliminating health disparities” (Phillips & Malone, 2014, p. 48). Therefore, further efforts will have to be applied to the designated area to reduce the influence of racial biases.
The significance of evidence-based practice (EBP) is also priceless in the context of diversity in nursing. As the work done by Betty S. Williams has shown, it is imperative to carry out consistent observation of patients so that the patterns for addressing their needs could be created (Witter & Manley, 2013). More importantly, the EBP approach enhanced by Williams points to the need for dealing with each patient on a case-by-case basis.
The Affordable Healthcare Act, in its turn, has opened a plethora of opportunities for the promotion of the framework suggested by Williams. Particularly, the ACA permits reinforcing the significance of the patient-centered care (Hoeger, 2013). Seeing that the latter is the focus of the nursing strategy promoted by Williams, it can be assumed that ACA will serve as a foil for creating a diverse nursing environment.
The initiatives of a nursing leader have also changed drastically over the past year. At present, the focus of the nursing process is on delivering efficient patient-centered services to all denizens of the U.S. population, especially ethnic and racial minorities. A year ago, the emphasis lay on promoting education and training to African-American nursing staff (Desin, Caban-Holt, Abner, Eldik, & Schmitt, 2016). Therefore, there has been significant progress in promoting diversity in nursing.
The concept of commitment to the nursing duties and responsibilities along with the idea of a patient-centered approach and the need to take the ethnic background of the client into account hare the essential quality improvement initiatives suggested by Betty Smith Williams. As the evidence provided above has shown, these advances have been deployed into the nursing environment successfully.
The success of promoting the new principles of nursing can be attributed to the Collaborative Community Health Model. Suggested by Betty Smith Williams (National Black Nurses Association, Inc., 2016), the tool under analysis serves as the foil for redesigning the current nursing environment. It enhances the process of continued leadership, thus, creating prerequisites for a consistent professional growth of nurses and the following improvement of service qualities. The above Community Collaboration Model should also be viewed as the tool for promoting leadership and contributing to further accomplishments in the designated area.
To help African-American nurses get their priorities straight, sustainability-based strategies should be used. These approaches will help nurses identify the areas that need their help urgently. More importantly, sustainability principles will permit nurses to relocate the resources at hand so that the issues could be managed as efficiently as possible (Song et al., 2015). As the example of Betty Smith Williams has shown, the use of the transformative leadership approach is crucial in the specified setting as it encourages nurses to change and accept new strategies for meeting the needs of patients with diverse backgrounds (National Black Nurses Association, Inc., 2016).
Communicating change in the nursing environment is a challenging task due to the prejudice that remains powerful in it, yet the transformative approach adopted by Betty S. Williams and aimed at introducing diversity into the target setting has prompted a major change. Although the nursing area still suffers from ethnicity- and race-related bias, the community- and diversity-related approach inspired by Williams has provided prerequisites for the redesign of the current nursing setting. By continuing Williams’ legacy and maintaining the course for diversity, one will create a safe and improved nursing environment, where patients of all backgrounds will be provided with the help that they need.
Reference List
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Betty Smith Williams [Image]. (2013). Web.
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Hoeger, M. (2013). The Affordable Care Act and healthcare decision science: Implications for psychology research training in personality, multiculturalism, and methodology. The New York State Psychologist, 25(4), 28–30.
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Williams, G., Fulbrook, P., Kleinpell, R., Schmollgruber, S., & Alberto, L. (2015). Critical care nursing organizations and activities: a fourth worldwide review. International Nursing Review, 62(4), 453-461.
Witter, J. A., & Manley, R. J. (2013). A quasi-experimental study: Mentoring for the novice nurse in an acute care setting. Journal of Business and Economics, 4(5), 381-396.
Young, J., Landstrom, G., & Rosenberger, S. A. (2015). Leading nursing into the future: Development of a strategic nursing platform on a system level. Nursing Administration Quarterly, 39(3), 239-246.
Appendix A: Betty Smith Williams (Betty Smith Williams, 2013)
