CRMH first to receive Shared Governance Accreditation in Virginia

The internationally recognized Forum for Shared Governance announced it has awarded shared governance accreditation to Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital in Roanoke, VA. Shared governance is an innovative management model ensuring nurses are the ones making clinical decisions at the bedside, while authorizing them to influence the resources that support them.

Patients often assume nurses are empowered to make decisions in their best interest. However, sometimes nurses’ decisions are superseded by managers, administrators, and others far from the point of care who don’t have the expertise or information to coordinate patients’ total care. Shared governance ensures that the status quo is bedside nurses empowered as patient advocates.

“Through rigorous survey of all nursing staff, managers, and administrators, Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital has demonstrated its nurses call the shots for their patients,” said Dr. Robert Hess, PhD, RN, FAAN, CEO and Founder, Forum for Shared Governance. “Shared governance has been associated with better professional, organizational, and patient outcomes, according to research studies. If patients get sick, they should make sure the ambulance takes them to a hospital accredited in shared governance.”

Only Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital and other accredited healthcare organizations are allowed to display an accreditation logo on their websites. Roanoke Memorial is the first organization in Virginia and only 13 organizations nationwide to received Shared Governance Accreditation.

According to Hess, because shared governance as a work environment carries marketing appeal to nurses, many hospitals claim to have it when they don’t. 

“Some hospitals put a structure in place in name only,” Hess said. “By using extensive survey methodology, the Forum for Shared Governance has been able to determine whether a hospital has real shared governance. Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital is one of those institutions.” 

The Forum for Shared Governance is a clearinghouse for promoting and disseminating research about shared governance and similar organizational innovations that help empower nurses and other healthcare professionals in their workplaces. It owns rights to the only methods of quantifying the presence of shared governance. Its instruments have been used by hundreds of hospitals across the globe for more than 25 years. It is the ONLY organization of its kind.