Shared governance--help needed!

[bbroad80]

Hello my fellow nurses! I work in the MICU. We have a new director and she has tasked me with getting some ideas and organization resources for starting a Unit-based Committee (ie, Shared Governance Committee) for our unit. Does anybody have any good resources that they can share? Any ideas for policies or projects that we can get started on with our new committee? How is your shared governance committee set up? How often do you meet and for how long? Any ideas/help would be much appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

bbroad80, MI RN

[vanilla bean]

I am a member of the UBT for my unit, but the organization I work for already had a well-established history of UBT utilization and a training program for new members so I was not part of developing/establishing the UBT on my unit. Unfortunately, most of my unit's projects wouldn't translate to those that provide care for adults, but we did work on one project that could be a problem on many units: to limit end-of-shift overtime by developing guidelines to streamline shift change hand-off and reporting.

My organization has a website that you may find helpful. I'm guessing that unless you work for them, you won't have access to everything they offer, but there is a significant portion of it that is accessible to everyone, including information on projects that different units/regions have tackled. If interested, you can check it out here.

My UBT meets once a month for 2 hours. We have a UBT facilitator (that is not part of our department chain of command), my boss, her boss, our educator, and the rest are staff nurses (with one as the "lead"). Hope some of that was helpful. Good luck!

[bbroad80]

Thanks!