Shared Governance at Parkland

The terms Shared Governance, Shared Leadership and Shared Decision-Making are frequently used interchangeably. Shared governance provides a framework for empowerment based on four primary principles: Partnership, Accountability, Ownership and Equity at the point of service. Empowering Parkland nursing staff through shared leadership is essential to improving patient, staff, and organizational outcomes. Parkland nursing is committed to building and sustaining an environment that enables interdisciplinary collaboration, ensures excellent, high quality patient care and promotes positive work life experiences.

Shared Governance Principles

Partnership: Fosters collaborative relationships among healthcare providers and patients along all points in the system.
Accountability: Is the core of shared governance. Fosters responsibility and evaluation of role performance.
Ownership: Is the commitment to participate and own one's contribution to purposeful work.
Equity: No one role is more important than any other. Each team member is essential to providing safe and effective care.

Parkland Health currently has eleven Nursing Shared Governance Councils at Parkland:

PEN Council: The PEN Council serves as the advisory council to senior nursing leadership. PEN coordinates system level activities. PEN membership includes staff nurses, managers, directors from both inpatient and outpatient settings. The PEN council serves as a liaison between nursing committees and councils and other hospital multidisciplinary committees.
Leadership Council: The Leadership Council provides operational leadership to the nursing staff provides advice and collaborates with the Chief Nursing Officer on management and leadership issues. Membership is open to members of the Nursing Leadership Academy, Nursing Operations Council and Nurse leaders in other support roles.
Practice Council: The Practice Council is a collaborative nursing forum focused on improvement in nursing practice. It consists of interdepartmental professionals facilitating communication across all settings. Members advocate for consistency of quality care, critical thinking, and promotion of professional competence.
Quality & Safety Council: The Quality and Safety Council is a collaborative nursing council with the authority and accountability for evaluating and measuring the quality of nursing care delivered and for evaluating and measuring the quality of the nursing care provider. This council develops the Nursing Quality Dashboard and identifies the mechanisms and processes to monitor, evaluate and improve nursing care delivery.
Nursing Research & Best Practice Council: The purpose of the Nursing Research and Best Practice Council is to promote and contribute to evidence-based nursing practice through education, evaluation, application, and encouragement of nursing research.
Professional Development Council: The Professional Development Council is a collaborative council comprised of educators and staff nurses committed to facilitation of evidence-based education that supports innovation, learning, mentoring, and advancement in critical thinking, professional development and strategies to promote retention of the professional nurse.
Night Shift Council: The Night Shift Council exists to represent the professional practice needs of nurses who work exclusively on evening and night shifts. This council works to ensure nurses voices from across the system and across all shifts are heard and the initiatives within Parkland address their unique needs.
Unit Based Councils Collaborative (UBCC): This council is designed to ensure a system of shared decision-making and communication between all Unit Based and Hospital Councils. This Council is open to Divisional, and Unit based Chairs and Co-Chairs.
Nurses in Support Roles Council: Nurses in support roles have unique needs for professional development and growth. The creation of a shared governance council for support role nurses increases engagement within the system. Nurses in support roles include but are not limited to nurses in: Bed Access Management (BAM), Educators, HIM, Nursing Operations Specialists (NOSs), Patient Access Center, Poison Control, Informatics, Operations Excellence, Quality & Safety, Performance Improvement, Risk Management, Infection Prevention, Nurse Navigators, etc.
Coordinating Council: The Coordinating Council is responsible for coordinating, integrating, monitoring and communicating the activities of other councils. It ensures bi-directional communication and cohesive communication among councils. It is comprised of all the councils’ chairs and co-chairs, the Chief Nurse Executive, Chief Nursing Officer, PCAPP program director, and other ancillary members.
Unlicensed Assistive Personnel (UAP) Ambassador Council: Parkland’s Nursing Division launched its inaugural Unlicensed Assistive Personnel (UAP) Ambassador Council. This shared governance council was established to empower, engage and retain valuable UAP staff within Parkland. Additionally, they will explore opportunities to partner in the community to recruit others to the UAP job role. The meeting had palpable energy with excellent attendance by UAPs across the organization. Overall, they are committed to providing safe and high-quality patient care with the goal of improving engagement and achieving organizational goals. We are excited about the future of this council and look forward to its success and growth. UAPs have a seat at the table!