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

Dataset on the impact of implementing a shared governance model on the level of professional governance among nurses in Saudi Arabia: Insights from experimental data

Shared governance is a concept that has been gaining popularity in the nursing field. It is a framework that allows nurses to have a greater role in clinical decision-making. This approach recognizes the expertise and knowledge that nurses possess and allows them to be active participants in the decision-making process. It is a way to empower nurses and to ensure that the best possible care is being provided to patients. By promoting shared governance, nurses are able to work collaboratively with other healthcare professionals and provide high-quality care that is evidence-based and patient-centered. This article presents data that was collected in an empirical study to investigate the impact of implementing a shared governance model on the perceptions of professional governance among nurses working in a tertiary hospital in Saudi Arabia by measuring the level of shared governance from the lowest level, the traditional governance level (management and administration only), to the highest level, the self-governance level (staff only), through six dimensions of nursing professional governance, including personnel, information, resources, participation, practice, and goals. The study was conducted over 8 months between July 2022 to February 2023 with the involvement of a random sample of 200 clinical nurses who completed a structured questionnaire before and after the study interventions as part of quasi-research. The interventions included designing and implementing a shared governance model, and providing a shared governance training to clinical to nurse participants. The pretest-posttest experimental group showed that there were improvements in the level of shared governance (shared governance level - primarily management/administration with some staff input), which denotes the effectiveness of nursing professionals governance training among nurses working in a tertiary hospital in Saudi Arabia. The data used in this study can be utilized by future studies for benchmarking purposes.

Board talk: How members of executive hospital boards influence the positioning of nursing in crisis through talk

Talk by members of executive hospital boards influences the organizational positioning of nurses. Talk is a relational leadership practice. Using a qualitative-interpretive design we organized focus group meetings wherein members of executive hospital boards (7), nurses (14), physicians (7), and managers (6), from 15 Dutch hospitals, discussed the organizational positioning of nursing during COVID crisis. We found that members of executive hospital boards consider the positioning of nursing in crisis a task of nurses themselves and not as a collective, interdependent, and/or specific board responsibility. Furthermore, members of executive hospital boards talk about the nursing profession as (1) more practical than strategic, (2) ambiguous in positioning, and (3) distinctive from the medical profession. Such talk seemingly contrasts with the notion of interdependence that highlights how actors depend on each other in interaction. Interdependence is central to collaboration in hospital crises. In this paper, therefore, we depart from the members of executive hospital boards as leader and "positioner," and focus on talk-as a discursive leadership practice-to illuminate leadership and governance in hospitals in crisis, as social, interdependent processes.

Health and social care workers' professional values: A cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND

Professional values create a basis for successful collaboration and person-centred care in integrated care and services. Little is known about how different health and social care workers assess their professional values.

RESEARCH AIM

To describe and compare professional value orientation among different health and social care workers in Finland.

RESEARCH DESIGN

A quantitative cross-sectional study.

PARTICIPANTS AND RESEARCH CONTEXT

We carried out an online survey of health and social care workers from 8 March to 31 May 2022, using the Finnish version of the Nurses' Professional Values Scale-3. The data were analysed using descriptive and advanced statistics.

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Permission was received from all participating organizations and those who completed the survey provided informed consent.

RESULTS

A total of 1823 health and social care workers, representing seven professional groups and students, took part. The overall level of professional values among the participants was relatively high. Commitment to providing patients and clients with equal care was more important than engaging with society and professional responsibilities in the work environment. Professional values were strongest among professionals with higher educational degrees and training in professional ethics. The same was true for workers who received organizational support for ethical practice, were satisfied with their work and had shorter work experience.

DISCUSSION

Our results showed shared professional values among different health and social care workers and students. These results are meaningful for integrated care and services. At the same time, a clear need for strengthening engagement with society and professional responsibilities for developing work environments were identified.

CONCLUSIONS

Health and social care workers and students need training in professional ethics and organizational support for ethical practice and work satisfaction to maintain their professional values at different stages of their career.

Professional governance in Finnish nursing - measured by the Index of Professional Nursing Governance

AIM

To translate and validate the Index of Professional Nursing Governance (IPNG) 2.0 and assess the state of professional nursing governance in Finland.

BACKGROUND

Raising and maintaining quality of care while retaining staff are common problems in healthcare globally. Professional governance is a modern way to tackle them, but a reliable instrument is needed to measure the state of nursing governance in Finland, and elsewhere.

METHODS

The IPNG that was translated into Finnish by forward-backward translation, culturally adapted and pilot tested with 20 nurses. A sample of 419 nurses was utilised in a cross-sectional study to assess the state of professional governance in Finland 2018.

RESULTS

Principal component analysis yielded six components with good Cronbach's α values. The results clearly indicate that the IPNG version developed and evaluated in this study has suitable psychometric properties for use in Finnish healthcare settings. The validated IPNG scores indicate that nursing governance in Finland is in the professional governance range. The staff have some input in the governance of Finnish healthcare organisations. However, this perception is strongest among the nurse leaders and experts; other groups do not perceive much change yet.

CONCLUSION

Participants, particularly nurse leaders in Finland, had self-reported impact in decision-making. The translated IPNG has acceptable internal consistency and can be used to assess healthcare organisations' governance models in Finland and broader in Nordic countries and Europe.

Components of the Magnet® model provide structure for the future vision of nurse managers' work: A qualitative perspective of nurse managers

AIM

To describe nurse managers' views of their work in the future.

BACKGROUND

Ongoing reformation of health care organisations includes profound changes to nurse managers' work practices.

METHOD

A qualitative approach was applied to elicit views of nurse managers (n = 133) from eight Finnish specialized medical care hospitals through one open-ended question about their future work in November 2019. The acquired data were subjected to inductive thematic content analysis.

RESULTS

Four themes were identified in the nurse managers' responses, indicating that they anticipated: 1) a shift from hierarchical leadership to shared governance, 2) an increasing focus on proactive and systematic work, 3) development of evidence-based practices and 4) improvement in the attractiveness and effectiveness of the organisation.

CONCLUSIONS

Nurse managers envisage their future work will follow the transformational leadership model. Shared governance and multidisciplinary team leading, with a stronger focus on proactive strategic planning will extend their power to influence decision-making. Administrative supporting systems will free more time from their daily routine work for interactions with staff.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT

Clarification of the managers' job description along with administrative support systems is anticipated to strengthen leadership, facilitate management, enhance decision-making and increase the attractiveness and effectiveness of both health care organisations and nurse managers' work.

Nurse Manager Core Competencies: A Proposal in the Spanish Health System

Nurses who are capable of developing their competencies appropriately in the field of management are considered fundamental to the sustainability and improvement of health outcomes. These core competencies are the critical competencies to be developed in specific areas. There are different core competencies for nurse managers, but none in the Spanish health system. The objective of this research is to identify the core competencies needed for nurse managers in the Spanish health system. The research was carried out using the Delphi method to reach a consensus on the core competencies and a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to determine construct validity, reducing the dimensionality of a dataset by finding the causes of variability in the set and organizing them by importance. A panel of 50 experts in management and healthcare engaged in a four-round Delphi study with Likert scored surveys. We identified eight core competencies from an initial list of 51: decision making, relationship management, communication skills, listening, Leadership, conflict management, ethical principles, collaboration and team management skills. PCA indicated the structural validity of the core competencies by saturation into three components (α Cronbach >0.613): communication, leadership and decision making. The research shows that eight competencies must be developed by the nursing managers in the Spanish health system. Nurse managers can use these core competencies as criteria to develop and plan their professional career. These core competencies can serve as a guideline for the design of nurse managers’ development programs in Spain.