Shared decision-making is a necessary requisite for maintaining a safe patient and high-quality care. The concept also serves to curb the acute shortage of professional nurses in healthcare. Therefore, an evidence-based managerial structure of shared governance is hailed as a method of promoting nurses’ involvement in decision-making by empowering all nurses to contribute to diverse inputs. This administrative structure is important at work unit levels, given that it is directly related to patient satisfaction, job satisfaction, and nurse retention. Through a shared governance model, nursing leadership empower and encourage other nursing staff to feel like part of the system through open and transparent communication, acknowledging of different inputs, and enhanced learning and reflection-time.
Empowering nurse leaders work best when they develop open communication systems and involve staff members in work design and workflow decision-making. Overwhelming studies on clinical government structures have shown that such types of leaders have working internal communication systems (Bieber & Joachim, 2016). Such patterns make them approachable and accessible, which promotes open dialogue with co-workers. For instance, leaders ensure employees participate in the design and evaluation of change initiatives. With a high frequency of open interactions guaranteed, staff members and other clinical leadership can comfortably voice their concerns and contributions towards improving quality care. Also, the developed trust between administrators and the staff facilitates information sharing that is meant to bring positive change. Thus, collaboration and effective communication can lead to successful factors, such as quality care.
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Similarly, shared governance is structured to support and acknowledge the inputs of others. According to Burkett, in a clinical environment where nurses are empowered, everyone shares in the management workload, given that the leadership structure supports the accountability, responsibility, and staff nurse authority (2016). In this regard, collective decision-making utilizes various competencies of nurses to promote and support patient care. Other evidence suggests that most nurses tend to believe that airing their problems is a sign of incompetence (Bieber & Joachim, 2016). By influencing nurses to own their varying practices and knowledge, leaders encourage nurses to join in a collective effort to promote the quality and value of healthcare. Such undertakings advance nurses’ professionalism by encouraging them to contribute to nursing and pool of knowledge appropriately. Eventually, this concept will make failure seem like part of the system and one that can be overcome through partnership, thereby promoting the quality of care.
Accordingly, shared decision-making governance in clinical settings provides employees with time to learn, think, and train. Burkett (2016) posits that sufficient time for reflection and evaluation promotes the evaluation of the existing work system and the crafting of new working processes. However, such learning cannot materialize if the top management hurries the nursing staff during their working practice. Instead, learning is fostered when the management regularly frees up employees (Burkett, 2016). Furthermore, the nursing staff needs special skills to be productive after learning. For instance, skills and expertise in statistics are necessary when conducting and assessing experiments. It is only through learning that these skills can be imparted, given that they are not intuitive. The effectiveness of such training depends on collaboration and group participation among healthcare providers. Therefore, shared leadership can focus on creating a shared understanding among employees to foster problem-solving and innovation for better healthcare practices.
In light of the identified outcomes, making shared governance the norm in nursing organizations means hiring and forming collaborative and transformative leadership. Such leaders consistently establish free and effective communication patterns, acknowledging the input of co-workers, as well as promoting learning, reflection, and skills development. These strategies make collaborative governance meaningful and successful. Consequently, shared governance based on the aforementioned principles empowers all other staff members to participate in decision-making, encouraging creative and diverse inputs that are necessary for advancing healthcare mission.
References
Bieber, P., & Joachim, H. (2016). Shared governance: A success story. Nurse Leader , 14 (1),
62-66. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mnl.2015.09.011
Burkett, L. (2016). Collaborative decision making. Nursing Management (Springhouse) , 47 (9),
7-10. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.numa.0000491131.60730.d3
