Setting Up Nursing Committees: 3 Tips for Facilities

Nursing committees are groups of nurses with a shared purpose and agenda, who may provide advice to nursing leadership. Unlike some nursing councils, committees generally don’t have actionable authority, meaning they can’t issue orders or enter into contracts. Instead, they often gather evidence about a change that’s needed, advocate for it, and influence facility leadership in that way.

Establishing a committee at your facility may be a great way to engage staff nurses, promote job satisfaction, and elevate the care you’re providing to patients. However, it may be challenging to motivate staff to participate and trust that the initiative will have beneficial results. It’s important to set yourself, and your staff, up for success.

Let’s look at potential structures and functions of nurse committees, and how they may fit with your leadership model. We’ll also cover three tips to help you successfully implement a committee at your healthcare facility.

What Is a Nursing Committee?

Nurse committees are formal groups of nurses that meet regularly to help shape a facility’s culture and decision-making processes. A nursing committees’ members may have duties that involve:

• Investigating issues that a unit or facility is facing.
• Problem-solving patient or staff concerns.
• Innovating new nursing workflows and procedures.
• Bringing forth nursing evidence-based practice.
• Gathering data.
• Sharing nursing knowledge within the committee.
• Educating healthcare staff.
• Making recommendations to facility managers, leaders, administrators, or boards.

The selection process for participation will vary depending on the type of committee and may require nomination and election, specific experience levels, or an application process. Committees can be formed around a unit, facility, or a theme, and can contain varying mixes of staff and leadership (for example, 80% staff and 20% leadership).

What Are Some Examples of Nursing Committees?

Because there’s so much variation in committee function and structure, it may be helpful to look at some examples. Here are real-world nurse committees, and a glimpse at what they do.

Example 1: Mass General’s Cancer Nursing Practice Committee was formed around the theme of oncology, with a shared mission of making improvements in nursing practice that would benefit cancer patients.

Example 2: Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Nurse Wellness Committee is a nurse-led committee that meets monthly with an overarching goal of advocating for the health and wellness of nurses at the facility.

Example 3: Cleveland Clinic’s cardiothoracic surgery step down unit’s Shared Governance Committee meets monthly to work on shared governance projects, quality improvement projects, teamwork, and other unit priorities.

Other common examples of nursing committees are ethics committees that involve not only nurses, but multidisciplinary staff for the purpose of reviewing ethical dilemmas and providing advice. An additional list of nursing committees in hospitals, long-term care, and outpatient settings includes:

• Antibiotic Stewardship Committees
• Patient Safety Committees
• Infection Prevention Committees
• Medication Safety Committees
• Quality Improvement Committees
• Sepsis Awareness Committees
• Reducing Workplace Violence Committees

Why Do Facilities Utilize Nurse Committees?

In hospitals, where business is the norm, committees require extra effort from staff and management – especially when motivation is waning and challenges arise. So, why do hospitals, clinics, and other types of healthcare facilities decide to implement committees? Getting nursing staff involved in decision-making has been shown to:

• Empower nurses.
• Improve nurse’s job satisfaction.
• Improve patient outcomes (specifically, nurse-sensitive indicators).
• Lower operational care costs.

Giving nurses a voice may help them to feel valued and respected in the workplace, and involved in the facility’s mission rather than simply trading time for a paycheck. This can contribute to improved staff retention rates and a healthier work environment.

Shared Governance and Nursing Staff Engagement

Because engaging nursing in decision-making can improve organizational outcomes, many healthcare facilities use a shared governance model to promote nursing staff participation on multiple leadership levels. Nursing staff committees are a key piece of the shared governance model, allowing nurses to collaborate with and advise facility leaders on matters like patient care practices and quality improvement initiatives.

Facilities that don’t use the shared governance model can still use nurse committees to involve front-line nursing staff in decision-making on multiple organizational levels.

How to Start a Nursing Committee: 3 Tips For Success

If you’re a nurse manager facing the challenge of starting a new committee, you may feel overwhelmed by the barriers. The floor nurses are consumed with patient care from clock-in to clock-out, and eager to go home to their families after each busy shift. Or, your staff has seen previous committees start and fail, and grumbles when you bring up a new initiative.

So, how do you overcome these barriers and get a new committee up and running? Here are three key considerations that will help you motivate staff, and potentially facility leaders, to support your vision.

1. Be Transparent About the Nursing Committee’s Function and Structure

Tell your team why you are starting a committee, what you hope to achieve, and how it could benefit the unit, facility, or patients. Bring relevant statistics into the conversation, outline the ratio of staff-to-leadership, and lay out any potential negative effects along with the positives.

For example, you may highlight a recent rise in patient falls, and evidence that a comparative committee has successfully reduced that rate. Disclose the expected time commitment up front, and acknowledge the challenges of meeting that commitment.

2. Be Consistent and Show Commitment

If your staff has seen committees flounder or fail in the past, they may resist a new attempt. During the pandemic, many committees took a back seat to direct patient care and had to be rejuvenated in the years following. Show that you are committed to the initiative by putting forth a consistent effort, even if you face a slow warming to the idea.

3. Establish a Clear Scope and Authority for the Nursing Committee

What is the committee responsible for, and how will they influence decisions at your facility? It will be helpful to determine this at the outset, so that participants don’t misunderstand what they’re signing up for.

As an example, a committee formed around reducing workplace violence may be tasked with gathering evidence and making recommendations to hospital leadership, as well as educating staff members. Explaining this up front is helpful, so nurse volunteers don’t expect to have direct authority over facility workplace violence policies.

Get More Nursing Leadership Insights for Your Team

Motivating staff to participate in nursing committees is just one of the challenges you face as a nurse manager. We know your role is tough, so we’re here to support you with a wealth of resources, including our expert-written healthcare leadership guides and insights.