Governance education would benefit nurse leaders

The Institute of Medicine’s 2010 report The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health argued governing boards need the perspective of nurses to advance the nation’s health. But encouraging more nurses to serve on boards may not be enough. “Until nurses can confidently embrace governance leadership as a part of their professional identity, convincing and expecting non-nurse board leaders to appoint nurses to boards will continue to be a challenge,” write Lisa Sundean, PhD, RN, and her coauthors in the latest issue of the Journal of Professional Nursing. They describe a strategy for incorporating governance competencies into nursing curricula by leveraging the American Hospital Association Governance Core Competencies and the Massachusetts Nurse of the Future Core Competencies-RN.