Staff Perceptions of Decision-Making in a Shared Governance Culture

Moving Shared Governance to the Next Level: Assessing Council Health and Training Council Chairs

The shared decision making professional practice model of shared governance supports positive nursing working environments and patient outcomes. Achieving and sustaining clinical nurse involvement with unit councils can be challenging. Nursing leaders of a large healthcare system with approximately 650 patient beds across 5 hospitals utilized the Council Health Survey to assess unit-based councils' health. Interventions for strengthening shared governance in the organization included enhancements of unit council structures and training for chairs and leaders based on the survey findings.

Content validation in concepts of management and managerial practices in Nursing

ABSTRACT Objectives: to define and validate 37 concepts emanating from the epistemology of knowledge about Nursing Administration. Methods: theoretical-methodological study using the Delphi technique in 37 concepts and definitions built on the knowledge of more than half a century of research on Nursing Administration. The concepts were submitted to the judgment of a panel of 21 judges and the validation was measured by the content validity index (> 0.78) and Kappa coefficient (> 0.61). Results: enunciation of 37 concepts and definitions capable of reflecting the knowledge about Nursing Administration. The 37 concepts were validated by the judges, resulting in content validity indices that ranged from 0.81 to 1.00, with reliability higher than 0.79. Conclusions: the epistemological solution presented was validated by the judges with indices above 0.80 and high reliability of universal agreement, constituting a new object of ontological understanding for the scientific nursing community.

Nurse managers' perception of governance among Korean nurses

AIM

This study aims to ascertain nurse managers' perception of nurses' governance and explore their perception of facilitating and hindering factors of shared governance.

BACKGROUND

Shared governance has been introduced in nursing as a plan to improve nursing service quality. There is limited understanding about how governance is implemented.

METHODS

A mixed-methods design was used to elicit Korean nurse managers' views.

RESULTS

Quantitative data revealed the level of nurses' governance perceived by nurse managers as shared governance. However, among the subdomains, 'control over personnel' and 'participation in committee structures' indicate traditional governance. Analysis of qualitative data identified the factors that facilitate or hinder the subdomains: 'stifled atmosphere', 'nurse manager's encouragement', 'lack of opportunity and perception of the given authority' and 'flexible organisational structure'.

CONCLUSION

Findings from the study can be used to inform shared governance programmes for hospitals.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT

Health care organisations, nurse managers and nurses must take action at each level to improve the current nurse governance situation. A flexible organisational culture with opinion windows for participation by nurses is important for shared governance. Supportive leadership of nurse managers and nurse-directed implementation could advance shared governance.

An integrative review on interventions for strengthening professional governance in nursing

AIM

To identify the interventions for strengthening professional nursing governance and describe their outcomes.

BACKGROUND

The ever-changing health care environment requires empowering governance structures and shared decision-making. The costly nature of reshaping governance makes the identification of effective interventions vital.

EVALUATION

An integrative review was carried out between January 2007 and May 2020 in the CINAHL, PubMed, Scopus, PsycINFO, Business source, Cochrane and Medic databases. The quality of the 12 included studies was evaluated with the Joanna Briggs Institute critical appraisal tools.

KEY ISSUES

Eight studies reported that the implemented interventions had positively influenced organisation regarding creating positive work environments, building new leadership competencies and increasing personnel's ability to take part in decision-making. The overall quality of the evidence was judged to be moderate.

CONCLUSION

Comprehensive decision-making structures, efficient teamwork and transformational leadership competencies among nurse leaders enable personnel to participate in decision-making. Further research is needed to identify the most effective interventions for improving professional governance.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT

Nurse leaders have to ensure that personnel have adequate opportunities to congregate and decide over matters concerning their work. Positive organisational climate and relational leadership style, along with highly functioning teams, are important prerequisites to nursing councils producing the desired outcomes.

Research on hospital-based shared governance: a scoping review

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to review research on hospital-based shared governance (SG), focussing on its core elements.

Design/methodology/approach

A scoping review was conducted by searching the Medline (Ovid), CINAHL (EBSCO), Medic, ABI/INFORM Collection (ProQuest) and SveMed+ databases using SG and related concepts in hospital settings as search terms (May 1998–February 2019). Only original research articles examining SG were included. The reference lists of the selected articles were reviewed. Data were extracted from the selected articles by charting and then subjected to a thematic analysis.

Findings

The review included 13 original research articles that examined SG in hospital settings. The studied organizations had implemented SG in different ways, and many struggled to obtain satisfactory results. SG was executed within individual professions or multiple professions and was typically implemented at both unit- and organization-levels. The thematic analysis revealed six core elements of SG as follows: professionalism, shared decision-making, evidence-based practice, continuous quality improvement, collaboration and empowerment.

Practical implications

An SG framework for hospital settings was developed based on the core elements of SG, the participants and the organizational levels involved. Hospitals considering SG should prepare for a time-consuming process that requires belief in the core elements of SG. The SG framework can be used as a tool to implement and strengthen SG in organizations.

Originality/value

The review resumes the tradition of systematically reviewing SG literature, which had not been done in the 21st century. General tendencies of the research scene and research gaps are pointed out.

Nursing shared governance at hospitals - it's Finnish future?

PURPOSE

The purpose of this study is to describe council structure, its benefits, supportive and obstructive factors and developmental needs as a part of shared governance in a university hospital.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH

This is a descriptive study, where semi-structured interviews with 12 nurses was conducted in 2014 and documents from 75 council meetings from 2009 to 2014 were gathered and analyzed. Qualitative content analysis method was used on the data.

FINDINGS

The study hospital has been developing nursing shared governance with unique structure and processes of councils. Professors and university researchers act as chair and members are voluntary nursing staff. The factors supporting the councils are nurse managers' support, enthusiastic personnel and neighboring university. The factors obstructing the councils are lack of time, understanding and skills. The work of the councils benefits the organization by improving patient care, harmonizing nursing practices and informing decision-making. The council's developmental needs were more visibility, concentration into everyday problems and interprofessionality.

RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS

Applying nursing shared governance structures into an organization improves the professional practice environment of nursing personnel.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

The study hospital has its own, unique council structure. It did not cover the whole hospital or all of the nursing personnel, but it is already producing promising results. It should be given an official status and more support from nurse managers, and it should be developed into an inter-professional discussion. The results presented here indicate that shared governance, even, in its early stage, contributes positively to the quality of care, harmonizes nursing practices and informs decision-making. Applying shared governance structures into an organization improves the professional practice environment of nursing personnel. The study showed concrete supporting and obstructing factors that should be notified in nursing leadership.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE

Despite the extensive empirical studies on nursing shared governance, there is very little research on councils in the Scandinavian countries.