Benefits And Challenges Of Shared Governance In Nursing

Shared governance is an innovative model used to provide direction for the professional practice of nursing. This model is used to direct nurses to participate in unit-based decision making that allow nurses to demonstrate accountability and ownership for their practices. The goal of the model is to improve quality patient care contain costs, and retain nursing staff. According to Marquis and Houston (2012), “In shared governance, the organization’s governance is shared among board members, nurses, physicians, and management” (p. 270-271). Shared governance is imperative in the healthcare institutions. “Shared governance, which gives nurses control over their professional practices, is an essential element of a professional practice nursing model, providing structure and context for health care delivery” (cite shared governance article). This allows each healthcare worker to have a voice in the decision making and encourage input that will expand the business and healthcare. The four principles of shared governance are equity, accountability, ownership, and partnership. Equity is a foundation that focuses on services, staff, and patients and is essential in providing safe and effective care. No one role is more important than the other. “Each

Some benefits of shared governance include increased team cohesiveness, communication, and decision making. According to Wilson, Speroni, Jones, and Daniel (2014), “Shared governance activities give direct care nurses an opportunity to partner with nursing management to achieve optimal patient outcomes and to increase nurse job satisfaction, nurse productivity, and nurse retention” (p.19). “Challenges of shared governance identified by staff nurse included decrease staffing, budget concerns, lack of knowledge, generational issues and issue with delegation of tasks” (Ott and Ross, 2014 p. 767). These challenges poses a threat to providing quality patient