Cultivating Leadership through Asset and Opportunity Mapping
Rationale/Background: A critical need exists for nurse governance. Nurses currently fill between two and six percent of board seats, as compared to twenty percent by physicians. This is a distorted distribution, particularly when one considers the expertise and impact nurses have. Nurses understand the patient experience, they have contact with not only the patient but the family and the doctors, and they represent the largest part of a hospital workforce. It is essential to increasing nurses’ visibility.
Undertaking/best practice/approach/methods/process: This is an interpolative partnership among the Jonas Nurse Leader Scholar Program, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Action Coalition, the Utah Action Coalition for Health (UACH), HealthInsight, the Utah Organization of Nurse Leaders, and the Academic Leadership Committee. The intervention consists of three parts: collecting information on nurses who are willing and able to serve, identifying leadership opportunities on boards and other governance bodies, and matching competencies with needs.
Outcomes achieved/documented: The valuable knowledge, insights, and perceptions that increased nurse governance brings additionally results in improved organizational awareness, influence, and effectiveness. The asset and opportunity mapping addressed in these partnerships is piloted in a REDCap database, built to connect stakeholders on both sides of the equation. Nurse leadership not only engenders public trust and confidence but also brings increased effectiveness in board decision making.
Conclusions: The IOM’s Future of Nursing report states that “public, private, and governmental health care decision makers at every level should include representation from nursing on boards, executive management teams, and in other key leadership positions”. We must continue to provide ways for nurses to identify leadership opportunities. Future undertakings include mentoring nurses to prepare them for a variety of leadership and governance prospects, examining what part gender disparities may play, and supporting additional nurse advocacy efforts.