Nursing Share Decision Councils

The Nursing Shared Decision-Making Structure provides direction and support for the professional practice of nursing at Huntington Memorial Hospital. Inherent to the definition of the nursing profession is autonomy and the accountability to keep the patient and family at the center of care. Shared Decision-Making allows nurses of all disciplines to have an active voice in the necessary and vital changes that occur throughout the organization. By providing unit based and globally shared decision-making opportunities, ideas are shared and outcomes are achieved through effective and innovative methods.

The values of shared-decision making include: partnership, accountability and ownership for practice over site. The advantages of shared decision-making are twofold:

• Empowerment nurses to use their clinical knowledge and expertise to develop, direct and sustain our own professional practice.
• Allows nurses to network and develop collaborative partnerships among units, departments, and other disciplines.
• Fosters dynamic staff-leader partnership that promotes collaboration, shared decision-making and accountability for improving quality of care, safety, and enhancing work life.

Coordinating Council
This council provides a forum for the coordination and consolidation of information, invention and improvements of other councils as well as serving as a liaison to other hospital interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary committees and serves as the “filter” for hospital-wide projects.

Nursing Clinical Leadership Council:
This Nursing Clinical Leadership Council ensures the overall coordination of clinical leadership activities among the patient care areas. Other responsibilities include: management and coordination of strategic initiatives and patient care issues related to administrative policy changes and flow of patients and information in the organization.

Clinical Nurse Recognition Program Committee:
The goal of the Clinical Nurse Recognition Program (CNRP) is to recognize the professional excellence of Huntington Hospital nurses and their desire to provide the best care to our community. The primary functions of the CNRP committee are to evaluate the applications, refine the application process, set goals for additional participation in the CNRP and to communicate, educate and encourage recognition in the pursuit of clinical nursing excellence. In 2010, the CNRP committee reviewed nearly 100 applications, simplified the CNRP application form based on staff input, assisted and led multiple formal and informal meetings to assist nurses with the application process and created referral binders to facilitate the application process. This council has a reporting structure to the NCLC.

Nursing Practice Council
The Nursing Practice Council oversees nursing practice and standards throughout the organization. The council identifies the need for development of standards of nursing care and identifies opportunities for investigating evidence-based practice to develop standards. In addition, it provides a forum for the discussion of clinical matters, professional issues, trends and the formulation of pertinent recommendations. This council serves as the reporting body for the following councils: Nursing Clinical Policy and Procedure, Nursing Informatics, and Nursing Peer Review and Patient Education.

Nursing Clinical Policy and Procedure Council:
The purpose of the Nursing Clinical Policy and Procedure Council is to promote evidence based review of Huntington Hospital’s clinical policies and procedures, to review existing policies and procedures and to develop new clinical policies and procedures using evidence based methodologies.

Nursing Peer Review Council:
The Nursing Peer Review Council provides a fair and impartial evaluation of event-based nursing performance based upon the hospital policies and procedures, evidence-based practice guidelines and nursing scope and standards. The council receives referrals from a variety of sources related to event involving nursing. The council summarizes findings and reports to the Quality Management Committee and Nursing Practice Council on a quarterly basis.

Nursing Informatics:
The purpose of the Nursing Informatics Council is to collaboratively enhance the electronic documentation system so that it is integrated, individualized and incorporates standards, regulations, scope of practice and legal requirements. The council also provides consultation and makes recommendations regarding documentation frequently used by nurses. It ensures that clinical applications reflect the standards of care and nursing practice.

Patient Education:
The Patient Education Council evaluates existing patient education materials and to provide guidelines for development of new patient education materials that are consistent with our patient population and comply with regulatory requirements. A long term goal of this council is to make patient education materials easily accessible to all nurses.

Unit Based Council Chairs
The Unit Based Council Chairs Committee is a forum where the chairs of the units/department Unit Based Councils (UBCs) can come together and network. Their focus is providing one another input and feedback on shared decision making topics related to practice, competency, work environment and patient safety. This council coordinates annual goal setting for the individual UBCs.

Nursing Quality Council
The purpose of the Nursing Quality Council is to ensure and improve patient care quality and nursing practice by utilizing quality data concerning nurse sensitive indicators. The council reviews quarterly data and determines opportunities for improvement. In addition, the council collects additional data as needed to identify targets for change. The council collaborates with other councils and quality committees sanctioned by the hospital to effect change and improvement in nurse sensitive indicator results.

Evidence-Based Practice/Nursing Research Council
The Evidence-Based Practice (EBP)/Nursing Research Council provides a foundation and structure for direct care nurses to perform and implement evidence based practice and nursing research. The council is responsible for promoting the value of scientific approach to problem solving in the delivery of patient care. In addition, the council designs activities that foster and support direct care nurses in the submission and integration of EBP projects. The council provides guidance in the development of nursing research proposals and determines the method of disseminating these findings.

Nursing Education Council
The Nursing Education Council collaborates with workforce development regarding clinical education needs identified by needs assessment, events and/or nursing leadership. The council is responsible for performing an annual educational needs assessment of clinical nursing staff. In addition, the council plans for and provides educational activities related to new clinical practices and provides a forum for sharing innovative educational activities in nursing.