Shared Vision in Nursing An Evolutionary Concept Analysis Revealing Dualities Within the Profession

Shared vision has been used by the nursing community for over 20 years, but this concept and its language are not presented consistently. At its most basic level, shared vision consists of identifying what a group wants to create. The main objective of this study is to provide a concept analysis of shared vision from an evolutionary nursing perspective within health care organizations. Forty-eight nursing journal articles from 1989 to 2016 were included in the analysis. The concept is presented within the nursing literature as a process or an outcome relying on top-down or bottom-up approaches to defining the future of care. Nurses are central and active in visioning while patients and families are passive recipients. Leaders have an important role to play in shared vision.