shared goverance? who uses it?

Our SICU had shared governance implemented prior to their quest for Magnet. Once we got Magnet it went away. Our new director of patient care services actually announced the governance council would not meet any more. Just like that it was gone. Then, about 6 months before or Magnet recertification was due it was announced that the governance council would start meeting again.

Same thing for the program they had to assist ADN RNs get their BSN. The hospital had a program that would pay up to $15K for an ADN to get their BSN in exchange for a two year contract. That went away about 3 months after Magnet certification. It still exists but is not funded and nobody can actually get the money.

My hospital uses it. We have hospital wide shared governance, and unit based councils. I've only been to a few meetings, so I'm still learning what each council and committee does. But from my understanding, my unit is one of the most active in the hospital wide and unit based councils. And it seems that a lot of good changes come from it.

My head nurse used to sit in on our meeting and suppress any signs of independence of her nurses. One meeting, she totally seized control of it and used to her own purposes. I think she got word that we were going to talk of something she didn't want us to talk about. Leaving the rest of us unable to accomplish what we came there to accomplish. I think most people in health care management think that shared governance smacks of democracy, something most Nazi's despise.

We adopted it at University of Wisconsin on our journey to Magnet status which we received in April 2009. I know it is required for any and all hospitals in prepartion for the Magnet application and subsequent process.

What is shared governance?

Please explain for those of us who haven't been exposed to this Magnet stuff.

*** Count yourself lucky. Shared governance is supposed to enable nurses to control their practice. In my experience, after working at two hospitals who did their "Journey to Magnet" it was all just a show for the certifiers. Try this link.

http://medinfo.ucsd.edu/nursing/magnet/

Shared governance is a way for staff nurses to become involved in the decisions that affect patient care, particularly decisions that involve direct nursing care. It usually involves some way of representing staff nurses at a unit and hospital level for decision making; ranging from just having input on a decision, to having a vote, even to the point of having full control over a decision. The power of nursing shared governance groups varies widely by organization since it completely depends on how willing the management is to share power.

It's essentially a way of applying the nursing process to patient care in general; identify a problem, a solution, and then implement the solution and evaluate it.

Shared governance structure usually consists of Practice, Quality, Research, Recruitment/Retention, and Education Councils.

Nursing Shared Governance has been around since the 80's although the studies that have been done on it's effectiveness have yet to show that we've figured out how to make it a successful program.

Forum for Shared Governance