| Course | NUR 5094 Capstone Practicum Experience for Role of the Nurse Administrator |
|---|---|
| Module | Module 4 |
| Paper type | Leadership project implementation report |
| Length | 1,160 words, about 4 pages plus title and reference pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | American College of Education |
| Program | MSN Nurse Administrator |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for NUR 5094 Module 4
Forty-Six Conversations and the Decisions They Forced: Implementing Stay Interviews on Three Medical Units, From Themes to Schedule Rules, Night Rounds and a Budget Line
Student Name
American College of Education
NUR5094: Capstone Practicum Experience for Role of the Nurse Administrator
Module 4 Assignment
Instructor Name
March 27, 2029
Implementation Against the Plan
The managers' preparation session took place in week six. Between weeks seven and eleven, the three managers held stay interviews with 46 of the 49 eligible nurses, 94% against a target of 90%. Two of the three not interviewed were on leave and one declined. Seventeen of the 46 worked mainly nights; managers met them at 0630 or 0700, before or after their shifts, as planned. Interviews averaged 24 minutes. The managers recorded 71 commitments in total, and by week twelve had reported back to the nurse on 58 of them, 82% against a target of 80%. The author met each manager weekly and led three meetings of the managers, and the mentor covered the planned weekend call shifts.
What the Nurses Said
The author and the managers coded the interview notes into themes, using the nurses' own words where possible. Four themes dominated. Inconsistent handling of schedule requests was raised by 29 of 46 nurses, who described approvals that seemed to depend on who asked and when. Feeling invisible on nights was raised by 16 of the 17 night-shift nurses, who said they saw their manager only when something went wrong. Lack of recognition, the item the practice environment survey had flagged, was raised by 18. Workload peaks from late-afternoon admissions were raised by 15. Twelve nurses, most in their second or third year, asked about support for specialty certification, and eight said a competing hospital's higher pay had tempted them.
The themes largely confirmed the exit interview reasons from Module 2, but the conversations added what the exit data could not: specific, fixable detail. The practical value lay in the specificity that Wang et al. (2023) identify as the method's purpose: learning what, concretely, would keep a particular nurse engaged. An exit interview tells a manager that scheduling was a problem; a stay interview tells the manager which three requests were denied and why the nurse thought it was unfair.
The Decisions
The themes required decisions at two levels. At the unit level, the managers agreed in the second managers' meeting on a single written policy for schedule requests across the three units, with a request window, a rule for competing requests based on a rotating priority list and a standard reply within five days. They also agreed that each manager would be on the unit at the start of the night shift or the end of it at least one day a week, rotating so that every night nurse would see a manager at least twice a month, and that each unit would hold a monthly recognition huddle at shift change, with nominations from staff.
At the service line level, the director made two decisions. She approved funding for a specialty certification review course and the examination fee for up to 12 nurses a year, about 7,200 dollars, arguing to the chief nursing officer that it cost less than one-eighth of a single departure. She declined to pursue unit-level pay adjustments, which are set by the system's compensation team, but forwarded the aggregate pay concerns to human resources with the turnover data, and told the managers to say so honestly when nurses raised pay. The late-afternoon admission peaks were referred to the patient flow committee, since they arise from emergency department and bed management processes beyond the units' control.
How the Schedule Policy Was Built
Because scheduling was the most common theme, the way the new policy was built deserves a closer look. The managers' first instinct, in the second meeting, was to write the policy themselves over a weekend. The author suggested instead that each manager bring a pair of staff nurses, a day worker and a night worker, with at least one of the pair still in their first three years, to a 90-minute working session. The mentor approved paying the six nurses for the time. The session began with the anonymized interview quotes about scheduling projected on the wall, which made the problem concrete without singling anyone out. The nurses then described how requests actually worked on each unit, and the group discovered that the three units used three different request windows and that one unit had no rule at all for competing requests, so that approval depended on who emailed first. The group drafted a single policy in the session: requests open eight weeks before a schedule posts and close at six, holidays rotate on a published list, competing requests for the same weekend are settled by a rotating priority order that resets each quarter, and every request receives a written answer within five days. The managers agreed to post each schedule with the requests approved and denied, without names, so that nurses could see the rules being applied. The policy took effect for the schedule posted in week eleven. Involving staff nurses took more time than the managers' weekend plan would have, but it produced a policy nurses had helped write, and two of the six took on explaining it at their units' staff meetings, which the managers could not have done as credibly.
Difficulties and How They Were Handled
Three difficulties arose. In four interviews, nurses raised concerns about their own manager. The managers had been prepared for this, and three of the four conversations went well; in the fourth, the manager became defensive, and the nurse raised the matter with the director afterward. The director met with the manager, and the manager later described the conversation as the most useful feedback received in years. Second, a manager fell two weeks behind in week eight because of a staffing crisis; the mentor joined that manager's interviews for a week, as planned, and the manager caught up. Third, several nurses asked whether their comments would be shared. The managers explained that themes, never names, would go to the managers' meeting, and the author confirmed that the notes shared with the group contained no identifying details.
Lessons for the Administrator's Role
The implementation corresponds to the moving stage of the change model the project used. Lewin (1947) emphasized that change requires not only new behavior but a new equilibrium, and the managers' practice shifted once the first commitments were kept and nurses began to mention them to colleagues. Three lessons stand out. First, the administrator's contribution was less in the interviews than in making the managers' follow-through possible: protected time, a shared policy and a budget line that turned a conversation into an action. Second, relational leadership, which research links with better outcomes for nurses (Cummings et al., 2018), requires structural support; the managers were not unwilling to lead relationally, they had no time or routine for it. Third, honesty about what cannot be changed, such as pay, did not undermine trust; nurses said they valued hearing it directly. Module 5 reports what the project achieved against its objectives.
References
Cummings, G. G., Tate, K., Lee, S., Wong, C. A., Paananen, T., Micaroni, S. P. M., & Chatterjee, G. E. (2018). Leadership styles and outcome patterns for the nursing workforce and work environment: A systematic review. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 85, 19-60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2018.04.016
Lewin, K. (1947). Frontiers in group dynamics: Concept, method and reality in social science; social equilibria and social change. Human Relations, 1(1), 5-41. https://doi.org/10.1177/001872674700100103
Wang, A., Devine, C., Hamilton, L., & Layton, M. (2023). Do not wait until it is too late: Using stay interviews to engage and retain nursing staff. Nursing Leadership, 36(1), 46-56. https://doi.org/10.12927/cjnl.2023.27124
What the NUR 5094 Module 4 instructions ask for
In many sections, the fourth module of NUR 5094 asks you to report on implementing the leadership project. Expect to compare what happened with the plan, give process data, summarize what the intervention revealed, describe the leadership decisions made and who made them, report difficulties and how they were handled, and reflect on what the experience shows about the administrator role. Many prompts single out decisions about resources, policy and escalation. Implementation reports tend to run about five pages, with a table comparing plan and practice. Your Canvas page says whether the mentor must verify the report and whether the reflection is graded separately.
Inside the NUR 5094 Module 4 example
The report opens with a table-like comparison of plan and practice: interviews planned and held by unit and shift, managers trained, and actions logged within thirty days. The findings section reports themes with counts, such as unpredictable schedules and limited precepting, and compares them with the Module 2 assessment, showing what interviews revealed that exit data had not. The decisions section describes each decision by level: unit managers changed weekend rules, the director funded a precepting line, and pay concerns were escalated with a reason. A section shows how the schedule policy was drafted with staff. Difficulties, including a manager who heard criticism as personal, are reported with how each was handled, and the reflection links the work to Lewin's model and to relational leadership.
NUR 5094 Module 4 rubric: what full marks look like
Implementation reports are scored on accuracy, judgment and candor. Accuracy means each planned element is compared with what happened, with numbers. The findings row rewards themes reported with counts and set against the earlier assessment. Most credit usually goes to the decisions section, where graders look for decisions placed at the right level, with reasons and costs, and for a clear line between what leaders fixed and what they escalated. Credit for participation goes to an account of how staff shaped a concrete product, here the schedule policy. Candor about difficulties earns its own points, because executives trust reports that show how problems were managed. A reflection tied to the change model and APA 7 complete the grade.
Common NUR 5094 Module 4 mistakes, and how to avoid them
Implementation reports most often describe activities in order and never say what was decided. Another frequent weakness is reporting only successes, which graders read as incomplete. Students also leave out numbers: how many interviews, how many actions, how many closed within the deadline. Show the decision level for every action. Name what you escalated and why. Keep quotations from nurses anonymous and short. Link difficulties to the change model, since resistance in the moving stage is expected. If your project was a different intervention, such as a mentoring program or a scheduling pilot, an implementation report on it can be written.
Write yours, or have the desk draft it
This paper is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official American College of Education document. Read it for the moves, then write your own to the instructions in your classroom. If you want one built to your exact prompt and rubric, the first custom sample is free and arrives in 24 to 48 hours.
More NUR 5094 and MSN Nurse Administrator sample papers
- NUR 5094 Module 1: Administrator Practicum Plan
- NUR 5094 Module 2: Organizational Assessment
- NUR 5094 Module 3: Leadership Change Project Proposal
- NUR 5094 Module 5: Leadership Project Evaluation
- NUR 5094 Module 6: Executive Report and Reflection
- NUR 5113 Module 1: Payer Mix Analysis
- NUR 5103 Module 4: Decision-Making Model Application
- NUR 5133 Module 5: Nursing Workforce Trend Analysis
- NUR 5113 Module 3: Budget Variance Analysis
NUR 5094 Module 4 questions, answered
What kinds of leadership decisions should I report?
Decisions about resources, policy, priorities and escalation, with who made them and why. Showing which problems were solved locally and which were referred elsewhere demonstrates administrative judgment.
Should I report problems during implementation?
Yes. Describe difficulties honestly and how they were handled. Graders and executives both trust a report that shows how problems were managed more than one that claims none occurred.
Where can I find a free NUR 5094 Module 4 sample paper?
The forty-six stay interviews report is free to read above, with plan versus practice, themes with counts, decisions by level, the schedule policy, difficulties and lessons for the administrator role.
How should I present process data in an implementation report?
A short table works best: each planned element, its target, what was achieved and a note on any gap. Follow it with a paragraph explaining the most important gaps and what was done about them.
What does escalating a decision mean in a nurse leader report?
It means sending an issue to the level with the authority to act, such as pay or benefits going to human resources or the executive team. Reporting what was escalated, and why, shows administrative judgment.