A Different Voice: Nurses on the Board

Publication Date: June 2008

Publisher: Health Forum, Inc.; Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Author(s): S. Meyers

Research Area: Health

Type: Report

Abstract:

This essay describes how nurses and nurse leaders are poorly represented in the boardrooms of health care organizations (HCOs) and how we need to include them more in strategic decisions, particularly around the issues of patient satisfaction and quality of care.

A study conducted in 2008 found that out of 2,046 board members across multiple health care organizations only 2.4 percent were nurses, while 22.1 percent were physicians. Many nurses today are highly educated and have held leadership positions both in hospitals and the community, and so it seems surprising that they are not making it into the boardrooms.

This essay also explains how health care leaders are working to raise the status of nurses to boardroom level. For instance, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has recently launched Nurse Leaders in the Boardroom, a project designed to train future nurse leaders and to facilitate relationships between nurses and HCOs. As today's hospitals face increasing scrutiny from regulatory bodies in nearly every aspect of patient safety and care, nurses can provide a unique perspective and one that should not be ignored. Some suggest that it is enough to have physicians as board members, but this author argues for both physicians and nurses to work together in understanding the needs of the patient and the family. Nurses must become their own advocates in this regard, get educated on the issues in hand, and convince leaders they understand cost and quality concerns.