Research paperHealth care governance

HCA 545 Module 2 Role of Governance in Health Care Organizations

Governance is a legal structure, not a synonym for management. The brief's team-culture list and its Sarbanes-Oxley requirement are what keep the paper from drifting into leadership.

Editorial process

Last reviewed · August 23, 2026

Written by

Maren Caldwell

MSN, RN, CNE

Medical-surgical nursing, pharmacology and NCLEX preparation

Reviewed by

Dr. Tessa Redmond

DNP, RN, CNE

Evidence-based practice and clinical education

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Assignment instructions
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Governance is a legal structure, not management

Governance and management are different things and a paper that treats them as synonyms will answer none of the three tasks properly. Governance is the board's function: setting direction, appointing and evaluating the chief executive, holding fiduciary responsibility, and assuring quality and compliance. Management executes. The distinction has a concrete consequence in health care, because a hospital board carries fiduciary duty for quality of care and not only for finances, which is unusual among corporate boards and is worth saying early. Corporate structure then shapes how well governance works: a not-for-profit community board answers to a community, an investor-owned system board answers to shareholders and may govern many facilities remotely, and a system-subsidiary structure creates the specific problem of a local board with responsibility and limited authority. Say that early, because it is the sentence that keeps the paper on governance rather than drifting into leadership, which is a different module.

The team culture concerns the brief lists are unusually specific, so use its own vocabulary rather than substituting general advice. Working at cross-purposes is a goal alignment problem and its remedy is a shared, written set of board priorities. Turf battles are about jurisdiction and are addressed by charters that state what each committee decides. A meeting tone read as secretive is a transparency problem with a governance-specific remedy in minutes, declared conflicts of interest and executive session used sparingly and with a stated reason. Then bring the statute in properly rather than as a paragraph of history. Sarbanes-Oxley applies directly to publicly traded companies, which most hospitals are not, but its provisions on audit committee independence, executive certification of financial statements, internal control documentation and whistleblower protection have been widely adopted voluntarily as governance best practice across the non-profit sector, and saying that is the accurate answer.

Likely learning objectives

Distinguish governance from management in structural terms.
Identify the board's fiduciary duty for quality as distinctive to health care.
Match each named team-culture concern to a governance remedy.
State the actual reach of Sarbanes-Oxley and its voluntary adoption.

Assignment instructions

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Review every instruction before using the planning guidance that follows.

Details: Write a paper (1,000-1,250 words) on the concept of governance within a health care organization. Address the following: 1) Corporate structure and how it impacts the effectiveness of governance. 2) Various roles of governance within the organizations and how they should interact within a team setting. 3) Concerns to consider when developing and strengthening a team culture. For example: a) Team members working independently or at cross-purposes. b) “Turf battles” that can slow or impede the accomplishment of project purposes. c) The tone of meetings and interactions that can be seen as negative, manipulative, directive, and/or secretive. d) Failure to properly apply governance concepts. e) A discussion of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and its impact on governance and senior management. 4) Prepare this assignment according to the APA guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required. 5) This assignment uses a grading rubric. Instructors will be using the rubric to grade the assignment; therefore, students should review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the assignment criteria and expectations for successful completion of the assignment.

Course-wide instructions that accompany this question

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS Discussion Questions (DQ) Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words. Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source. HCA 545 Module 2 Role of Governance in Health Care Organizations One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words. I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses. Weekly Participation Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately. In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies. Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work). Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week. APA Format and Writing Quality Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required). Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation. I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition. Use of Direct Quotes I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly. As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content. It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source. LopesWrite Policy For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me. Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes. Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own? Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score. Late Policy The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies. Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances. If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect. I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension. As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading. Communication Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me: Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class. Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.

What HCA 545 Module 2 requires

01A paper of 1,000-1,250 words in APA format.
02Corporate structure and how it impacts the effectiveness of governance.
03The various roles of governance and how they should interact in a team setting.
04Concerns in developing and strengthening a team culture, covering the examples given.
05A discussion of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and its impact on governance and senior management.