Shared Governance
Shared Governance is a professional practice model adopted by healthcare organizations to support professional practice environments and improve care outcomes. Creating a professional practice environment recognizes that a different set of relationships and interactions and different ways of making decisions are necessary if effectiveness is to be sustained in a healthcare system. Shared Governance acknowledges that clinicians are knowledge workers and require organizational structures that share the power and control for practice decisions between management and direct care clinicians. The key principles for understanding and implementation of shared governance are partnership, equity, accountability, ownership, and self-regulation.
Good Shepherd Medical Center has adopted the shared governance process for clinicians thereby recognizing that in a self-regulating professional practice model, the clinical accountability for care rests with the clinician within his/her respective practice. This establishes an environment where in the clinician maintains accountability for clinical practice standards, advocates for quality and safety care, ensures peer credentialing, and promotes professional development of peers.