This post is sponsored by Capella University.
Please see my disclaimer page for more information on our partnership.
When I was getting into the field of nursing, I pictured the entire profession at the bedside. To me, all nursing looked like was nurses providing direct patient care 24 hours/day. I did not realize that not only are nurses in administrative positions within hospitals, but they are also sitting in boardrooms, elbow-to-elbow with executives, helping make decisions.
Why would a nurse need to be in a boardroom? Why is this necessary?
To over-simplify, there are people that make decisions that may look and sound good in the boardroom or planning stages, but not so awesome when put into practice. Because the nurse is the primary care giver and point of contact for the patient and their support system, many – if not most – changes made will impact them. Also, given the current health care climate, where reimbursement is driven by metrics, and medical errors are now the number three cause of death in the US, health care systems cannot afford any missteps. Therefore, nurses must be a part of high-level decision making.
“Quality and safety has profound effects on patients. This is a critical imperative. Including nurses in the conversation doesn’t seem like it should be anything other than obvious.”
— Laurie Benson, BSN, Executive Director, Nurses on Boards Coalition
Source: Nurses on Boards: The Time for Change is Now
Health care systems and patients cannot afford for nurses not to be involved. We know our patients intimately. We know the processes of the hospital backwards and forwards. We know our supplies, equipment, and resources inside and out. While physicians and their team may place the order, we are the ones implementing those orders, directly caring for patients, and can identify inefficiencies, safety concerns, and room for improvement. If nurses are part of the decision-making process, we can profoundly impact aspects of finances, quality and safety, as well as the patient experience.
“All of the things that nurses do on a regular basis is a collective skill set that most other professions don’t have. Nurses have experience in finance and managing budgets; communications and the ability to work with and lead a team; quality and process improvement for patient care; and for making good decisions, strategic planning and human resources. They bring something very different to the table.”
— Kimberly Harper, RN, MS, Chief Executive Officer, Indiana Center for Nursing, Nursing Lead, Indiana Action Coalition — National Future of Nursing Campaign for Action, Co-Chair, Nurses on Boards Coalition
Source: Nurses on Boards: The Time for Change is Now
This is so important that a group was created to promote nurses sitting on boards. The Nurses on Boards Coalition was formed and has a goal to ultimately improve the health of communities nationwide by ensuring 10,000 registered nurses are sitting on boards by 2020.
Just so we’re on the same page of what a board is when they say “on a board,” the coalition means any corporate, advisory, governmental, non-profit, or governance board that has fiduciary and/or strategic responsibilities (please click on the FAQ section for the rest of the definition and specific examples).
So, if you’re a registered nurse and already sitting on a board, it is important that you are counted! Go to the Nurses on Boards Coalition site where you can identify as a board member and be counted towards the 10,000 goal.
Capella University partnered with the Nurses on Boards Coalition to lay out the need for nurses on boards. They created a document, also called a white paper, entitled Nurses on Boards: The Time for Change is Now and it is available for free. When I opened the document, I thought it would go right over my head… but I found myself doing the Christina Aguilera on The Voice “preach it” to the computer about 9 times.
Truly, it just makes sense to have nurses at the table to come up with solutions to problems that they deal with every single day. Below is a practical example, directly from the white paper:
According to an article in Trustee Magazine, the late Dr. Curran used her knowledge of hospital operations to challenge a proposed board decision to close the hospital pharmacy overnight on weekends in order to save money.
“Wait a minute, who’s going to get the medications for the patients and the ER?” she asked board members. It was then that she realized her fellow board members weren’t considering all of the possible consequences of the decision.
As a nurse, Curran understood how closing the pharmacy would affect the patient experience, and was able to offer a new perspective beyond looking at short-term cost savings.
The white paper takes that common sense and translates it into specific benefits for health care systems and organizations, should they begin adding nurses to their boards.
To get more information about this initiative, check out the Nurses on Boards Coalition website. And be sure to download the white paper created by Capella University about the initiative.
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