On 9 May, the online seminar “Nurse Leadership in Patient Safety” was held, promoted by the DECIDE Chair in collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim. The meeting was attended by nearly 80 health professionals and brought together experts in healthcare, nursing leadership and education.

Dr Pilar Fuster, Dr Encarna Rodríguez and Dr Mireia Llauradó, directors of the DECIDE Chair, welcomed the attendees and then gave the floor to Dr Guillem Bruch, Medical Director of Boehringer-Ingelheim. During his speech, Dr Bruch stressed the importance of having a good health system and the need to invest in it, with a special focus on innovation and leadership. In this regard, Dr Bruch underlined the importance of the role of nurses as they are the closest professionals to patients and therefore have a key role in empowering them and giving them autonomy.

Next, Dr Azucena Santillán, a nurse at the Hospital Universitario de Burgos and a technical expert in scientific advice for the Spanish government, provided a dynamic and participatory analysis of nurse leadership, how it has changed over the years, and how it influences the quality of care patients receive. It is essential to create a good working climate so that professionals feel motivated and eager to innovate, in addition to reducing adverse effects and errors in medication management. Santillán also stressed the need to inculcate the culture of clinical safety in graduate students through effective leadership.

Next, a round table was held with Dr Santiago Tomás, Director-Manager of the FIDISP Foundation; Dr Marina Garcia, nurse and professor in the Nursing Department at the University of Malaga; and Cristina Alfonso, nurse and professor in the Nursing Department at UIC Barcelona. The three experts focused on clinical safety and drug management. Dr Tomás specifically noted the importance of nurse leadership in the administration of medication, and the essential role of these professionals in preventing and detecting clinical safety problems and driving actions for improvement to minimise risk.  Dr García shared his vision of clinical safety from a teaching perspective through a study on clinical safety and adverse events in clinical practice with students from the University of Malaga. Finally, Dr Cristina Alfonso demonstrated the importance of simulation in student clinical practices, as it allows learning in a safe environment, improving knowledge about safety and drug management and maintaining them over time. To this end, she showed the results obtained in the clinical trial conducted with second year students of the UIC Barcelona Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing. 

Dr Montse Miró, Head of Medical and Health Organizations at Boehringer-Ingelheim closed the session. Miró assessed the actions promoted by the Chair with the objective of empowering future nursing professionals to increase their leadership, their responsibilities and their presence in the health map. In addition, she was very positive in her assessment of the results achieved by different initiatives of the Chair, which facilitate innovation by improving leadership competence in the Degree in Nursing, especially in the care of the chronic patient.

View the full webinar