Increasing Quality and Patient Outcomes with Staff Engagement and Shared Governance

Abstract

The shared governance structure is a nursing practice model which is a hallmark of engaging the front line team into the role of leading practice excellence. The main principles of shared governance include ownership, accountability, empowerment, team building, leadership, innovation, autonomy, and practice equity. Combining these key shared governance principles with formal models can drive sustainable action planning for improvement. This article offers an exemplar describing how we improved shared governance in a community hospital setting. After evaluating findings from a gap analysis, we incorporated guiding frameworks such as the A3 action planning process; the Plan, Do, Check, Act cycle; and Lean methodologies to increase nursing engagement in the shared governance process. Clinical nurses and interdisciplinary teams developed action plans for quality and patient satisfaction improvements. We describe specific improvements to our process, offer examples of our improved outcomes, and discuss essential shared governance factors that were critical to our successes.