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Ask the expert: Helpful hints: Creating nursing bylaws

HCPro's Weekly Update on the ANCC Magnet Recognition Program®*, November 20, 2007

This week, a reader asks for tips on creating nursing bylaws. Read the response below from our advisor Meryl Montgomery, RN, MSN, coordinator for the ANCC Magnet Recognition Program®, director of learning, at Medical Center of Central Georgia in Macon, GA.

Q: Do you have any tips for creating nursing bylaws?

A: The development and implementation of bylaws usually occurs as your shared governance model is completed. At the Medical Center of Central Georgia-an ANCC Magnet Recognition Program® recipient in 2005-our nursing bylaws were created by establishing goals for our shared governance model and its infrastructure. After we defined these goals and infrastructure, a focus group was held to decide what our bylaws should look like to meet the needs of our staff nurses.  

To understand our nurses' needs, we held several retreats with managers, educators, nursing staff, and advance practice nurses to brainstorm roles and responsibilities for each council, create a unit and organizational council structure, and to interface with other committees about their communication process. The information gathered at the retreats was turned into policies and procedures, which in turn became MCCG's nursing bylaws. We had multiple people review the bylaws, and we revised them as we found what worked and did not work for our nurses.

Remember the following information when creating nursing bylaws:

• Accountability: When the practice, quality, research, and professional development councils are identified as staff councils with specific staff accountabilities, write into the bylaws what those accountabilities are, how they unfold, and what rules ensure that the councils do not shift elsewhere in the organization.
• Relationship: Each council needs its own set of rules and regulations unique to its own operations.
• Consistency: Formalize your bylaws so they can be used as tools to learn how the organization works, and follow the process of decision-making identified through shared governance.

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