Committee Meeting: Roles, Functioning, and Shared Governance in Healthcare Organizations

This article discusses a committee meeting conducted at a healthcare organization to address the issue of nurse-patient ratios and improve organizational outcomes. It explores the roles and functioning of the committee members, the process of shared governance in decision-making, and the importance of collaborative multidisciplinary functioning. The meeting focused on identifying solutions and implementing an organizational change process plan. The article emphasizes the significance of healthcare committees in driving organizational change and the need for multidisciplinary collaboration in shared governance.

Running head: COMMITTEE MEETING
COMMITTEE MEETING
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

1COMMITTEE MEETING
Introduction
Healthcare organizations must seek to improve their functioning and practices through
identification of areas for potential improvement and adhering towards modification of existing
procedures to ensure deliverance of quality healthcare (Choolijan et al., 2016). The following
paper will focus upon the details of a committee meeting conducted at a healthcare
organization, the observed roles and functioning of each member of the committee and the
process of shared governance undertaken in the organizational decision making process.
Discussion
Committee Meeting and Setting
The meeting was conducted in a hospital setting – a healthcare organization catering to
various patients with the deliverance of multifaceted treatment procedures. The meeting so
conducted was based on the discussion concerning maintenance of adequate nursing and patient
ratios. For the deliverance of quality healthcare with equitable treatment and resources for all
patients, maintenance of an adequate nurse to patient ratio is of utmost importance in a
healthcare organization. A high patient population and flow as compared to a comparatively
minor nursing workforce will result in increased workload and inadequate distribution of burden
of work across the clinical team (Falk & Wallin, 2016). Increased workloads as a resultant of
inadequate nurse to patient ratio will result in increased stress and burnout among nurses and
hindrance to the deliverance of quality nursing care leading to increased nursing errors, increased
patient dissatisfaction, negative feedback and high patient turnover leading to organizational
losses (Werli-Alvarenga et al., 2017). For this reason, a meeting was conducted by the hospital

2COMMITTEE MEETING
care committee for the purpose of addressing the current problem of nurse to patient ratio and
associated improvement of positive organizational outcomes.
Function and Roles of the Committee
The function of the healthcare committee in the hospital is to monitor, govern and
regulate existing organizational practices and functioning of the allocated clinical team (Offidani
et al., 2019). Monthly auditing sessions are held by the healthcare committee to evaluate existing
organizational working, strengths and shortcomings after which monthly meetings are held to
discuss and outline possible solutions for mitigation of the same. For improvement of existing
organizational problems associated with nurse-patient ratios, a meeting was held by the
hospital’s healthcare committee. The committee consists of a board of governing members
comprising of the president, the medical director, the chief executive officer, the advanced nurse
practitioner heading the nursing team, the chief pharmaceutical officer and the chief medical
officer heading governing the surgical, emergency, critical care and in-patient units. The
president oversees the legislation of foundational organizational policies while the director and
executives oversee overall administrative functioning of every department of the healthcare
organization. The advanced nursing practitioner monitors the functioning of the entire nursing
staff, the pharmaceutical officer looks into supply and usage of medications and medical
equipment while the medical officer is responsible for monitoring coordination between every
department of the concerned healthcare organization.
Observations and Process
A meeting was held concerning the present shortcoming of inadequate nurse and patient
ratios. The meeting proceed with an introductory session by the president on recent patient
demographics and population data after which the problem of staffing ratios were put forward.

3COMMITTEE MEETING
The meeting then commenced with nursing supervisor discussing the detrimental effects
encountered on patient outcomes due to staff shortage followed by the chief executive and
medical officers sharing details on the negative organizational outcomes and increments in errors
encountered by other clinical departments due to nursing shortage. The executive then proceeded
to enquire every member on their insights concerning possible solutions following which an
organization change process plan was included. This plan disseminated collaborative instructions
to the nursing supervisor and medical officers to allocate a separate triage team followed by a
need for fund allocation and recruitment ideas disseminated to the directors.
Shared governance encompasses equality in the distribution of healthcare responsibilities
across nurses as well as every department of a healthcare organization for the purpose of practice
improvement (Kutney-Lee et al., 2016). As observed, the meeting displayed equal sharing of
responsibilities across both nursing, clinical and administrative teams hence showcasing that the
decision was arrived at using processes of shared governance. Further, clinical governance also
encompasses collaborative multidisciplinary functioning which seemed to be absent since there
was no observed mention on how other clinical teams can aid nurses in triage. Hence, to
administer improved shared governance, the committee meeting should focus on an in-depth
discussion on how organizational change responsibilities must be distributed across nurses and
every department of adjacent inter-disciplinary teams (Siller et al., 2016).
Conclusion
Healthcare committees are key drivers of organizational change to alleviate shortcomings
in the functioning of a concerned healthcare organization. However, multidisciplinary
collaborative functioning is essential to adhere to committee principles of shared governance.

4COMMITTEE MEETING
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