Patient Health Problem Relevant to My Practice M.N, a 46-year-old African American male client, is the selected patient, whom I intend to work with during the practicum. M.N is a family friend and a patient at my current healthcare organization

Patient Health Problem Relevant to My Practice M.N, a 46-year-old African American male client, is the selected patient, whom I intend to work with during the practicum. M.N is a family friend and a patient at my current healthcare organization

Change in health care involves improving existing organizational capabilities, empowering the change agents, and continuously supporting the changing leaders. Leadership is key in delivering optimum health services and promoting change (Nilsen et al., 2020). Leaders thus have the role of motivating individuals and negotiating for resources to achieve set goals. This essay seeks to describe a patient with a health problem and evaluate it from leadership, collaboration, communication, change management, and policy perspective. I will also propose leadership strategies to enhance outcomes, patient-centered care, and patient experience related to the patient problem.

Patient Health Problem Relevant to My Practice

M.N, a 46-year-old African American male client, is the selected patient, whom I intend to work with during the practicum. M.N is a family friend and a patient at my current healthcare organization. The client has a history of obesity diagnosed at 32 years and was overweight from his 20s.  He was also diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes at the age of 40, and he has not achieved a glycemic control of below 7% in the past three years. M.N is currently on pharmacological management with Metformin and Atorvastatin in addition to lifestyle modification. His blood pressure has been elevated from his last clinic visits, and he admits failing to adhere to the health education on lifestyle modification.

M.N is married and lives with his wife and two children aged 17 and 12 years, respectively. He works in a Casino as a supervisor with an annual income of about $60,000. He has a history of alcohol consumption and tobacco smoking since he was 22-years-old. He drinks 3-4 beers a day and smokes1PPD, which he attributes to the nature of his work. The patient admits that he rarely engages in physical exercises, and his only physical activity is when he is walking around the casino at work.

Type 2 Diabetes is significant to the patient since it puts him at risk of developing comorbidities such as cardiovascular diseases and diabetes-related complications. The patient is at risk of cardiovascular conditions such as hypertension and heart failure and complications such as retinopathy, nephropathy, and foot amputations. Furthermore, diabetes has a substantial financial impact on the patient with direct medical costs such as expenditures to cover outpatient, inpatient hospital care, emergency care, and long-term care and prevention and treatment of diabetes and its complications.

Type 2 Diabetes is relevant to my professional practice as a BSN-prepared nurse since I have a crucial role in providing patient education on self-management skills, an essential part of diabetes care. Besides, BSN nurses are crucial in providing optimal patient care and promoting self-care management in diabetic patients (Nikitara et al., 2019). BSN nurses have a particularly crucial role as they perform annual diabetes and foot check and take part in screening, maintaining, and supporting patients with diabetes

Nursing Actions Related to Type 2 Diabetes

A patient diagnosed with type 2 diabetes must adhere to lifelong care plans to manage the condition. Nurses are at the frontline of delivering care and patient education to diabetic patients in managing the disease. The nurse’s roles and responsibilities in the care of patients with diabetes include: Providing education on prevention through behavior change and health coaching approaches; Promoting self-care; Screening of type 2 diabetes; Assessing and meeting the patient’s nutritional needs (Nikitara et al., 2019). Furthermore, nurses have a role in improving medication adherence to achieve glycemic control. Actions to improve adherence include assessing the patient’s adherence, exploring barriers to adherence, and identifying a mutually agreeable approach to eliminating the barriers (Nikitara et al., 2019). The nurse also develops a follow-up plan that assesses the planned treatment change and the progress in reaching the glycemic target.

The article by Nikitara et al. (2019) identifies three barriers to implementing evidence-based practice in addressing diabetes, namely lack of knowledge, resources, and time. The article argues that nurses have inadequate knowledge of specific aspects of diabetes. For instance, nurses have poor insight on more practical aspects of diabetes care, such as the timing and administration of some forms of insulin, the administration of metformin in renal impairment, and management and recognition of hypoglycemia symptoms (Nikitara et al., 2019). Furthermore, nurses lack structured resources, which affect their confidence in providing diabetes education to patients.

Studies reveal that nurses perceive the primary barrier to diabetes care as inadequate com