Shared Governance and Health Care Issues

Subject: Nursing
Pages: 3
Words: 560
Reading time:
3 min
Study level: College

Interpretation of the Article

The article on nursing and management issues ‘Shared governance models: The theory, practice, and evidence’ by Mary K. Anthony are aimed at analyzing the effectiveness of the shared governance model applied to the nursing staff members as reported in different studies. Through the reorganization of the health care system and reassignment of roles is one of the integral parts of the current health care management, it is necessary to introduce effective practices that can contribute positively to the work of nurses and quality of health care services provided to patients.

The author analyzes studies available on the issues of shared governance and evidence used to support the appropriateness of implementation of this practice (Anthony, 2004). Organizational outcomes, work environment, and nurse satisfaction are assessed about the practice of shared governance and the potential benefits of this initiative. Thus, the author infers that the reviewed studies are not designed effectively enough to persuade the government to introduce shared governance strategies into operation.

Issues Discussed

The issues discussed in the article concern effectiveness of management in health care institutions and potential strategies that can be introduced to improve the situation. The main problem includes a reorganization of the health care institutions about the responsibilities and roles of the nursing staff and potential benefits in terms of work environment, satisfaction, organizational outcomes, financial efficiency, and quality of services provided.

In this respect, different theories have been applied to health care institutions and, namely, the nursing staff members to increase the effectiveness of performance of health care staff. As implementation of shared governance can help solve the problems related to nursing, these issues were brought to discussion.

Positive Aspects

The shared governance strategy has certain positive aspects that can be considered decisive in applying this method to practice to make health care services more cost-efficient through empowering nurses. The first positive aspect that can be introduced into the health care system is the empowerment of nurses to increase their performance, improve the work environment, and guarantee their satisfaction.

In this respect, each nurse is expected to be enabled to perform as a health care professional regardless of the responsibilities and duties and making decisions about the autonomous performance of a nurse in the health care setting. The second positive aspect includes the reduction of costs spent on each patient per day. As every health care professional can perform better in the conditions of shared governance, it is possible to reach the goal of reducing costs through empowering nurses to operate autonomously.

Ramifications from a Management Perspective

The management perspective suggests that the reorganization in health care institutions should benefit from a review of studies conducted on the issue of shared governance in health care institutions. One of the ramifications of autonomous [performance of the nursing staff can be a lack of managerial to monitor and supervise the actions of the nursing staff.

In this respect, this issue should be addressed as well as the potential decrease in the quality of health care services provided without supervision of senior health care professionals. For instance, it is possible to establish a new department aimed at monitoring the work of the nursing staff members though this would not reduce costs spent in the field. As such, ramifications of shared governance do not prove to be beneficial for the field from a management perspective.

Reference

Anthony, M. K. (2004). Shared governance models: The theory, practice, and evidence. Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 9 (1). Web.