Using shared governance to empower nurses.

Service improvement is a key theme of nurse education and nurses are encouraged to continually improve care outcomes. However, in practice, nurses often lack time and support for continuous improvement. Amid a national shortage of nurses and midwives, as well as high turnovers of staff, shared governance offers a structure in which quality improvement is the main aim and career development is a benefit. This article explains the concept and outlines the benefits and barriers of such a structure.