Shared Professional Governance A Practical Approach to Transforming Interprofessional Healthcare

Shared governance structures, with all their intrinsic complexities, responsibilities, and accountabilities, must be carefully designed and Implemented to be sustained. This book takes some of the guesswork out of the various structures and processes behind shared governance and provides strategies, case examples, and best practices to make the daily operations of shared governance meaningful, successful, and sustainable. It is designed to provide a broad base on which to build planning and implementation of a successful shared governance infrastructure. To do that, you need guides, tips, and tools.
The purpose of the fifth edition of Shared Professional Governance is to provide leaders, educators, and healthcare providers with many of the essential tools and ideas for practical approaches for designing--or redesigning--an effective and efficient interprofessional and multidisciplinary shared governance process model. They will facilitate your ability to embrace the evolving changes needed to mature your shared governance Infrastructure towards sustainment. In this book you will find a compilation of information and tools to help you develop your own models and processes.
Quality, continual improvement, and excellence are embedded in healthcare practices across disciplines and services as the demand for value, safety, effectiveness, and efficiency grow and expand, directed at achieving outcomes that measure and increase the value of processes, i.e., shared professional governance. Therefore, this book also explores the relationship between shared governance and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) Magnet Recognition Program® (MRP) and Pathway to Excellence®. A case example provides insight into how Lean Six Sigma demonstrates how quality is folded into shared governance and results in process improvements at points of care.
You will also find guides for identifying models and tools for designing and building a structure to support shared governance. Additional tools help you create or recreate your structures from the unit or practice level upwards and mature your processes across disciplines and service lines. If there is a form you need, we have it.
You can explore ways to engage internal and external stakeholders, assess your processes and outcomes, build competencies, and evaluate your infrastructure within six domains of measurement. This book helps you as you grow and develop your knowledge, skills, and abilities through research, evidence-based practice, and shared decisional processes. These tools can support your work as you participate in a partnership with your leadership, educators, interprofessional team members, and multidisciplinary colleagues to ensure safe, competent practice within your organization and communities of service and c

Diana Swihart, PhD, DMin, MSN, APN CS, NPD-BC, CPP
Dr. Swihart is currently a Clinical Lead for National Specialty Programs with the National Center for Patient Safety, VHA. An author, speaker, researcher, educator, mentor, and consultant, she holds graduate degrees in nursing and leadership and doctorates in theology, ministry, and ancient Near Eastern studies (archaeology). Dr. Swihart is a Certified Preceptor Professional (CPP) and the CEO & Managing Partner for the American Academy for Preceptor Advancement and co-authored Building Your Professional Portfolio: Essential Tools for Healthcare Providers. Inducted into the American Academy of Nursing as a Fellow (FAAN, 2015), her work in establishing Preceptor Specialty Practice and professional preceptor certification was recognized nationally and internationally. She also co-authored Shared Governance: A Practical Approach to Transforming Interprofessional Healthcare with Dr. Robert Hess, is a consulting partner, and serves on the Forum for Shared Governance Advisory Board. Dr. Swihart has enjoyed many roles in her professional career, practicing in widely diverse academic, clinical, and nonclinical settings, including having served on numerous advisory boards (i.e., Journal of Nursing Regulation) and completed multiple terms as an American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) Magnet® Appraiser and as an ANCC Accreditation Commissioner.


Robert G. Hess, Jr., PhD, RN, FAAN
Dr. Hess is an educator, editor, author, consultant, the founder and CEO of the Forum for Shared Governance, and the webmaster for sharedgovernance.org and careerwhisperer.org. Dr Hess splits his time between the Forum and the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary where he has served as an officer on various levels. His formal education includes a degree in comparative religion from Temple University, a nursing diploma from Frankford Hospital in Philadelphia, a master's degree in nursing administration from Seton Hall University, and a doctorate in nursing from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, where he studied organizational theory at the Wharton School.

Retiring in 2019 from various companies that owned Nurse.com (formerly Nursing Spectrum and Nurseweek), Dr Hess was the Executive Vice President and Chief Clinical Executive. He was employed as a formal representative, thought leader, and network connection. In the 25 years before this last role, Dr Hess was the Executive Vice President, Education Programs & Credentialing, leading the largest continuing education providership in the world for nurses, as well as 23 additional health professions, including physicians and pharmacists. He led the largest CE providership in nursing and the first-ever winner of the American Nurses Credentialing Center's Accreditation Premier Program Award, 2007, which was awarded twice again. Capping his work as a commissioner and appraiser, he was the vice chair of ANCC's Commission on Accreditation. An award-winning author, Dr. Hess has written about 200 articles for numerous journals and coauthored two books on shared governance with Dr. Swihart, whom he met through ANCC. In 2008, Dr. Hess was inducted as a fellow into the American Academy of Nursing for his work in shared governance.

Dr Hess is the world's leading researcher on professional governance, a term he popularized in 1993. He developed the only current valid and reliable instruments, the Index of Professional Nursing Governance (IPNG), and the Index of Professional Governance, which measures governance by professionals, and Council Health, which evaluates shared governance councils in healthcare organizations. The IPNG has been translated into at least a dozen languages. In 2018, he established an accreditation program for organizations demonstrating excellence in shared governance.