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Shared Governance
Recognizing the importance nurses play in the quality of a patient’s hospital experience, Beaufort Memorial has created a Shared Governance program and taken on the challenge of earning a Pathway to Excellence designation, an honor awarded to healthcare organizations that promote a nurturing work environment for nurses.
“This is the direction that we would like to take nursing services in this hospital,” said Karen Carroll, Beaufort Memorial’s Vice President of Nursing/Chief Nursing Officer. “We are committed to valuing nurses’ contributions in the workplace.”
Sponsored by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC)— the largest and most prestigious nurse credentialing organization in the world—the Pathway to Excellence program is designed to help hospitals attract and retain skilled nurses by creating a positive work environment, and thus improve the quality of patient care.
“Empowering nurses to lead the charge in providing excellent patient care should be a priority in every healthcare organization,” says BMH President and CEO Rick Toomey, who has worked closely with the hospital's administration and nurse leaders to promote the Pathway to Excellence. “Our nurses are on the front lines everyday making sure our patients get the best care in the most effective way possible. No one else has quite the same vantage point or expertise to make practical and, often, critical decisions about how that care should be delivered.”
The program was originally started in 2003 by the Texas Nurses Association to improve the professional satisfaction of nurses working in small and rural hospitals in Texas. Requests to expand the program to other states prompted the American Nurses Credentialing Center to develop a nationwide designation. Upon doing so, they renamed the program Pathway to Excellence.
Creating an ideal workplace
To obtain the recognition of excellence for its nursing service, a hospital must successfully undergo a thorough review process where it fully documents that the criteria of the ideal workplace—as defined by nurses and research—are present in the organization’s practices, policies and culture.
“The number one essential element of the program is establishing shared governance,” said Don Bodiker, an emergency room nurse and chairman of Beaufort Memorial’s Nurse Advisory Board. “Instead of having management suggest how we should provide care, we, the nurse, have the opportunity at the bedside to shape our own practices based on our patient population.” “We then rely on management to provide the resources and communication to make our delivery of care a very nurse and patient friendly system.”
The first next step in establishing “shared governance” was to create a Nurse Advisory Board that meets once a month to hear suggestions and requests from the bedside nurses. The suggestions come from brilliant ideas and possible practice changes to improve patient care. Plans are in the works to expand the initiative by establishing unit based councils for each nursing department within the hospital.
“Shared governance gives us a voice in how we practice our profession,” said Bodiker, who has worked in the healthcare industry for 20 years. “It offers us the opportunity to change our delivery of care to the patient by making changes to our care at the bedside.” “It improves on patient satisfaction and nursing satisfaction with direct communication between the patient and the nurse.”
Measuring success
After documenting the initiatives it has established to improve nurses’ satisfaction, the hospital’s nurses will be asked to respond to a confidential, online survey verifying they believe their organization supports nurses and values their contributions.
At least 51 percent of the nursing staff must participate in the survey. To achieve the Pathway to Excellence designation, the hospital must receive a positive rating of 75 percent or better, reflecting a work environment where nurses can flourish.
Providing better care
For nurses, the Pathway program provides a benchmark to identify the best places to work. A hospital that has achieved the distinction has proved its commitment to nurses and what they identify as important to their practice. Consumers, in turn, know the nurses that will be caring for them have the support of management and are working in a positive work environment.
“The most rewarding feeling we could have is recognition from our patients that we gave them the best possible care,” Bodiker said. “We are a professional licensed group making our practice better.”
