Essay Example on Collaborative Decision-Making Through Shared Governance

In collaborative decision-making, people collectively settle on a decision from the choices present. Shared governance refers to a nursing practice model intended to coordinate center qualities and convictions that proficient practice grasps, as a method for accomplishing quality consideration. Shared administration models were acquainted with enhancing medical caretakers' workplace, fulfillment, and maintenance. Recently, nursing heads have reacted by rebuilding and assessing nursing care delivery frameworks. This is in an effort to meet the difficulties of keeping up an expert practice in an expense and asset obliged environment while at the same time concentrating on accomplishing positive patient, nurse, and authoritative results. This essay describes the function of the committee and the roles of those in attendance, observations of the interactions between committee members and determination of whether the decision making used is a form of shared governance.

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Functions of Top Committee Officials

The structure of committee incorporates the chair, treasurer as well as the secretary. All of them have defined and clearly distinguished responsibilities. The other committee participants mostly supplement the other positions. The chair provides authority and guidelines to the team, and also ensures the Committee satisfies its obligations regarding the administration and accomplishment of the institution. The chair also attempts to streamline the association between the group, any paid staff, unpaid helpers, and other relevant persons. This is with the primary objective of attaining the institutions agreed objectives. The chairman is the voice for the committee, and he strives to maintain professional relationships in and out of the committee. He also facilitates the collaboration with sponsors, subsidizing offices, nearby and state government, shared office clients and partnerships that are important to the objectives of the institution.

The vice chair helps the chair to satisfy his obligations regarding the administration and accomplishment of the institution. She acts as the chair in the absence of the chair. She is a substitute signatory for the committee for legitimate and financial purposes. She also assists the chair in choosing which matters are managed by the executive, full and designated committee members. The treasurer supervises the finances of the institution so that the committee members can provide a good financial report that is consistent with the pre-set institutions goals and objectives. As the head financial control officer, she prepares annual budgets, plans for the institutions monetary future and also monitors the institutions revenue as well as expenditure.

The secretary documents and communicates the undertakings of the team. As the head administration officer of the group, he connects the committee members and the outside agencies. He also prepares agendas, minutes, distributes them, receives and disseminates communication to and from the institution. He also documents the exact and adequate records as per legal requirements. He then enables and authorizes members to assist with the committee's business, which includes signing a copy of the final approved minutes and guaranteeing maintenance of the signed reports. Finally, he guarantees the availability of official records if needed by authorized persons and also provides an updated copy of the approved constitution and bylaws at all committee meetings.

Roles of the Committee

The ethics committee in a healthcare institution considers and aids in resolving ethical problems involving issues affecting healthcare provision to patients within the institution. This is by playing advisory roles. The committee ensures operations in the healthcare institution are guided by medical ethics. This is as enshrined in The Code of Medical Ethics of the American Medical Association, which guides ethics committees in making recommendations (Schonfeld, 2012). The matters considered by the committee ought to comprise moral subjects that a dominant number of its members may take to discuss on its initiative. In its consultations and correspondence of proposals, the techniques followed by the committee ought to consent to institutional and moral approaches for protecting the confidentiality of information in light of patients.

Observations of the Interactions Between Different Committee Participants

Participant observation and direct techniques are used in observation of the interactions between committee members. In the participant observation, a researcher becomes the insider and plays a dynamic role in the discussions done by the ethics committee (Sulmasy, 2010). In the direct technique, the researcher is an outcast and tries to observe behaviors passively without participation. This is with the objective of observing a set of interactions and document the behavior of all participants as exact as possible. The committee members are however aware that the researcher is recording their way of interaction. Being the researcher, I recorded field notes in both techniques of observational research.

The interactions were objective as each member provided his/her contribution to the matter of discussion. There was sobriety in the interaction between the leaders in the committee members, therefore, offering a favorable atmosphere allowing every member to voice his/her ideas. Sometimes, they would put certain issues to a vote to reach a consensus. The rules governing the meetings of the committee were strictly followed ensuring a high degree of discipline. Ethical issues at hand were discussed in systematic order ending with any other business information detailing. All this was done while at the same time observing time. The committee members exhibited effective participation, accountability, and readiness during the committee discussions.

Determination of Whether, the Decision Making Process Used, is a Form of Shared Governance

In the committee meetings, the process applied in arriving at decisions exhibited a form of shared governance. This is because the collaborative committee meeting was structured to solicit assistance in clarification, analysis and solution of ethical problems in health care institution. This strategy was more action-oriented compared to other strategies that can be used in the decision-making process (Huber, 2013). There was a group participation in decision making to arrive at mutually acceptable recommendations regarding the solutions to various healthcare ethical issues. This selection is attributable to the collective choice of all members and affects every member of the committee. As a result, in the collective decision-making, decisions made tend to be more effective as compared to those made by an individual.

Conclusion

In conclusion, collaborative decision-making through shared governance involves analyzing several alternatives as a group then agreeing to a suitable choice. Members of ethics committee in the health care institution are tasked with different functions. The chair heads the committee while the vice chair helps the chair in some executive roles. The vice chair also plays the role of the chair in his/her absence. The treasurer is in charge of all the financial matters in the committee while the secretary handles all the documentation of the committee. The committee handles moral issues emanating from the health care in the institution. Participant and direct strategies were used in observation of the interaction during the collaborative meeting. The decision-making process used during the meeting was a form of shared governance, as exhibited by the use of collective participation in arriving at choices.

References

Huber, D. (2013). Leadership and Nursing Care Management. Missouri: Elsevier Health Sciences.

Schonfeld, D. M. (2012). Guidance for Healthcare Ethics Committees. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Sulmasy, J. S. (2010). Methods in Medical Ethics. Washington, D. C.: Georgetown University Press.