Join the Forum founder, Bob Hess, PhD, RN FAAN, and advisory board members at booth 2046, between the  puppy playpen and the wellness lounge at ANCC National Magnet and the Pathway to Excellence Conference in Chicago, October 12-14, 2023. The Forum will host a book signing of the fifth edition of Drs Swihart and Hess’s, Shared Professional Governance, at a discounted rate. All your questions about professional governance and hospital accreditation, the Hess Index of Professional Nursing Governance, and Council Health will be answered, as well as a raffle and give-aways!

Welcome new Forum board member, Jennifer Merioles,BSN, RN, CCRN, a staff nurse in the Float Pool at Mercy Hospital St Louis, a Level 1 Trauma facility and Stroke and STEMI Center of Excellence in St Louis, Missouri. She floats to all adult intensive care units, as well as step-down and med/surg units. Jennie has been involved with shared governance since its beginning at Mercy Hospital in 2010. She has served as both chair and member  of both unit-based, as well as facility-level shared governance. Currently Jennie is chair of Mercy’s Facility Practice, Quality, and Research Professional Governance Council.

Welcome new Forum board member, Elaine Joyal, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, the Magnet Program Director for Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA. Her career spans 40 years, and she served in roles from clinical nurse to director of inpatient services and interim chief nursing officer as well as adjunct faculty in medical-surgical nursing, consultant, and Magnet Appraiser. Elaine is active in supporting shared governance as a member of the Nursing Coordinating Committee and the Magnet, Recognition, and Well-being Committee. In addition, she has implemented and revised shared professional governance structures in other roles throughout her career.

Like to see the message about shared governance that can be produced by a smart nurse, a guitar, and AI? Listen to Bill Perry, the IT nurse who has coached Bob Hess in html and all things web-directed from the beginning of the Forum for Shared Governance. Here’s Bill’s Talking Shared Governance.

A new addition to our peer-reviewed Poster Section: University of Maryland School of Nursing. Implementation of a Toolkit to Improve Engagement in Nursing Professional Governance, 2023. (Kelly Alilio, BSN, RN, DNP Candidate; Malissa da Graca, DNP, FNP-C)

The University of Chicago Medical Center (Chicago, IL) and CHI St Vincents Hot Spring (Hot Springs, AR) just received formal accreditation in shared governance by the Forum for Shared Governance. Hard enough to qualify for accreditation in the first place, but to demonstrate the evidence a second time is worthy of loud applause. Nevertheless, Conway Regional Medical Center (Conway, AR) and Nemours Children’s Health, Delaware Valle (Wilmington, DE)  obtained reaccredited in shared governance by the Forum. Does your organization have what it takes to meet our criteria? Read about Hackensack Meridian Health’s journey, the first system to be accredited by the Forum,  Measuring shared governance: One healthcare system’s experience. And amazingly, our accreditation is FREE!

Do you know how to implement shared governance in two years flat?! Well, we do!!! Shared Governance is an organizational innovation that gives healthcare professionals control over their practice and extends their influence into administrative areas previously controlled only by managers. Governance models will be evidence-based, because we’re doing the research. Send us questions about shared governance or read an overview.Here’s an overview of shared governance. Here’s open access to one of Nurse Leader‘s most cited articles since 2018, Drs Hess, Weaver & Speroni’s “Shared Governance During a Pandemic.” And in Nurse Leader, nurses at Arkansas Children’s Hospital report the “Use of the [our] Council Health Survey to Assess Shared Governance in a Pediatric Hospital During the COVID-19 Pandemic.”

Contrary to some recent claims, Professional Governance is NOT a new concept.

Disseminate! The Forum is now offering a mechanism for nurses to disseminate professional governance-related research studies to internal and external audiences and fulfill credentialing agencies’ requirements at the same time, through our peer-reviewed Poster Section. Contact the Forum for Shared Governance.

We welcome submissions for our growing library of Best Practices, derived from shared governance council work and accessible to Members Only. Contact the Forum for Shared Governance for your complimentary membership.

 If you missed our webinar, Innovations in Shared Professional Governance: Competencies and Measurements, by Drs Bob Hess & Diana Swihart, you can hear it here.

If you’re curious about why the Nottingham University Hospitals in the UK have become a leader in shared governance on the international stage, just watch this video.

Have you figured out how to include your night shift into shared governance? Dr Sue Weaver, a nurse scientist, has. Read her advice here from Hackensack Meridian Health, the first healthcare system to be accredited in shared governance by the Forum for Shared Governance, and a response from Dr Barb Haag-Heitman, noted shared governance consultant and board member for the Forum. How about making shared governance work in a union environment? Dr Edna Cadmus has made her experience available to you right here. Advice on issues are archived in our Advice from the Forum section, along with our best practices, but they are restricted to Members Only. To become a member for free, simply send an email to info@sharedgovernance.org.

Want to set your staff on fire about shared governance? Why not have both Dr Bob Hess and Dr Diana Swihart, the world’s current leading authorities on governance innovations, help staff and managers better understand shared governance by taking their online CE course, free to those who become Forum Members, which is also free! Drop us a note.

Want to know what we really think about participation in shared governance? Read the blog on Nurse.com, Shared Governance Really Thrives When Nurses Step Up and Participate. 

Did you know that the Index of Professional Nursing Governance and the Index of Professional Governance , the only reliable, validated instruments for measuring shared governance, are now available in shortened forms? They are available in Arabic, Chinese, Korean, French, German, Portuguese, English (American and UK versions), Finnish, Thai, and Turkish. Go to the INPG/IPG Guidelines begin to document your shared governance journey for Magnet and Pathways designations. You can evaluate how well your councils function as well with our new survey instrument, Council Health. Any of these instruments are free to researchers and students.

Did you know that more than 100 citations and abstracts are available in our shared governance articles database now?

Have information relevant to shared governance and the empowerment of healthcare professionals you’d like to have posted on our website? Let us know. The Forum is constantly revising its list of SG Hospitals Online. Send a request to determine your organization’s eligibility for this prestigious, but free listing.

Shared Governance is an organizational innovation that gives healthcare professionals control over their practice and extends their influence into administrative areas previously controlled only by managers. Governance models will be evidence-based, because we’re doing the research. Send us questions about shared governance or read an overview.