| Course | NR 531 Nursing Leadership in Healthcare Organizations |
|---|---|
| Week | 6 |
| Paper type | Committee charter draft |
| Length | About 1,100 words, 3 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Chamberlain University |
| Program | MSN, Nurse Executive |
| Updated | September 2026 |
Free sample paper for NR 531 Week 6
Committee Charter Draft: A Rewritten Charter for the Hospital Nutrition Care Committee, Built Around Clause 4, the List of What It May Approve Before Anyone Upstairs Hears About It
Student Name
College of Nursing, Chamberlain University
NR 531: Nursing Leadership in Healthcare Organizations
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
Committee Charter Draft: A Rewritten Charter for the Hospital Nutrition Care Committee, Built Around Clause 4, the List of What It May Approve Before Anyone Upstairs Hears About It
Why This Charter Is Being Rewritten
The hospital's Nutrition Care Committee has a charter that gives it responsibility for establishing nutrition care standards across the hospital. Its minutes for the past year show a third of its meetings held, no approvals and two items deferred twice and then dropped. The problem is not its members, who are experienced and willing. It is a charter that gives the committee a broad responsibility and no defined authority, so every decision is passed to another body. The draft below is written to be adopted as it stands. It keeps the committee's purpose, narrows its membership to people who can act, and gives it a specific list of decisions it may make itself. The drafting notes after the charter explain the choices.
Charter of the Nutrition Care Committee
1. Name. Nutrition Care Committee, a standing committee of the hospital, reporting jointly to the medical staff's executive body and to nursing leadership.
2. Purpose. The committee sets and maintains the hospital's standards for identifying, assessing and treating malnutrition in inpatients, and monitors whether those standards are met.
3. Membership. Voting members, by post: the clinical nutrition manager (chair); one hospitalist appointed by the chief medical officer (vice chair); one registered dietitian elected by the dietitians; two staff registered nurses, one from a medical and one from a surgical unit, nominated by the Nursing Practice Council; the nurse informaticist; one pharmacist from the nutrition support service; and one speech-language pathologist. Nonvoting members: the food service contract manager and a quality analyst. A vacancy is filled by the same appointing body within 60 days; until then the seat does not count toward quorum.
4. Authority to approve. The committee may approve the following without further review, and its decision takes effect on publication in the committee minutes: (a) the choice and version of the nutrition screening tool used at admission; (b) the dietitian response times for each screening score, within the dietitian staffing then in place; (c) the content of nutrition education for patients and families; (d) standard oral nutrition supplement choices from the approved formulary list; (e) the nutrition section of admission and discharge documentation, within the electronic health record change process; and (f) the measures and targets by which the committee monitors nutrition care.
5. Matters to be forwarded. The committee recommends, and does not approve: any protocol that allows a nurse or dietitian to initiate an order, which goes to the Medical Executive Committee with the chief nursing officer's approval; any addition to the formulary, which goes to pharmacy and therapeutics; any change requiring new positions or funds, which goes to the chief operating officer through the budget process; and any change to a hospital policy outside the nutrition policies, which goes to the Policy Committee.
6. Meetings. The committee meets monthly for one hour. Quorum is five voting members, including the chair or vice chair, at least one nurse and at least one dietitian. Members may attend by video. Between meetings, matters within clause 4 may be decided by email vote over five working days with the same quorum.
7. Record. The quality analyst keeps minutes. Every agenda item is recorded as approved, forwarded, deferred or received. A deferral states the reason and the meeting at which the item will return. An item deferred twice goes to the two chief clinical officers, nursing and medical, who decide whether it returns, is forwarded or is closed.
8. Reporting. The committee reports quarterly to the Medical Executive Committee and the Nursing Quality Council on screening completion, time from positive screen to dietitian assessment and the share of at-risk patients with a nutrition plan at discharge. These measures follow the principles of prompt identification and intervention set out in a national interdisciplinary call to action (Tappenden et al., 2013).
9. Escalation. If the committee cannot reach agreement on a matter within clause 4 at two consecutive meetings, the chair refers it to the same two chief clinical officers for a decision within 30 days, and the minutes record the referral.
10. Review. This charter is reviewed every two years, or sooner at the request of the Medical Executive Committee or the chief nursing officer. The review includes a count of items approved, forwarded and deferred.
Drafting Notes
Clause 4 is the reason for the document. The old charter said the committee establishes standards but did not say what it could approve. Clause 4 lists six decisions that the committee can make on its own because they fall inside existing policy, formulary and staffing. Each is specific enough that a dispute could be settled by reading the clause. Clause 5 lists what goes elsewhere, so the boundary is visible from both sides.
Membership follows authority. Every voting seat belongs to someone who can carry out a clause 4 decision or who represents staff who will. The food service contract manager is nonvoting because staffing is set by contract and cannot be changed by committee vote. The speech-language pathologist is included because swallowing assessment determines many diet and supplement decisions.
The deferral rule answers the old record. Clause 7 exists because the old committee tabled items without returning to them, including a proposal for nurse-initiated dietitian consults. A second deferral now forces a decision by two executives.
Measures are few and routine. Clause 8 names three measures that can be drawn from the electronic record without manual audit. Writing on disease-related malnutrition as a candidate national goal stressed that hospitals should identify at-risk patients and act on the findings (Guenter et al., 2015). The three measures track exactly those steps.
Plain register. The charter uses numbered clauses in the present tense and avoids persuasion, so that it can be adopted as an operating document without editing. The case for it is made here, in the notes, and in the briefing that will accompany it to the Medical Executive Committee. One question the draft leaves open is whether two staff nurse seats are enough for a hospital of this size. I kept the number small so that quorum is reachable, and the Nursing Practice Council can ask for more seats at the first review.
References
Guenter, P., Jensen, G., Patel, V., Miller, S., Mogensen, K. M., Malone, A., Corkins, M., Hamilton, C., & DiMaria-Ghalili, R. A. (2015). Addressing disease-related malnutrition in hospitalized patients: A call for a national goal. The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, 41(10), 469-473. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1553-7250(15)41061-X
Tappenden, K. A., Quatrara, B., Parkhurst, M. L., Malone, A. M., Fanjiang, G., & Ziegler, T. R. (2013). Critical role of nutrition in improving quality of care: An interdisciplinary call to action to address adult hospital malnutrition. Journal of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition, 37(4), 482-497. https://doi.org/10.1177/0148607113484066
NR 531 Week 6 instructions, in plain terms
The Week 6 assignment typically asks you to draft a charter for a committee or council. Prompts ask for purpose, membership, roles, scope and authority, meeting procedures, reporting relationships and review. Write it as an operating document, in numbered clauses and present tense, not as an essay. The clause that matters most lists what the group may approve without further review; make it specific enough to settle a dispute by reading it. List beside it what the group must forward and to whom. Name members by post, with a rule for vacancies. Include quorum, record keeping, escalation and review. Put your reasoning in separate notes. Cite any evidence the purpose relies on in APA 7.
Inside the NR 531 Week 6 example
The example opens with a short explanation of why the charter is being rewritten, drawn from a year of minutes. The charter follows in ten clauses. Membership is limited to posts that can carry out decisions, with the contract food service manager nonvoting. Clause 4 lists six decisions within existing policy and staffing, from screening tool choice to monitoring targets. Clause 5 routes protocols, formulary additions, funding and outside policies elsewhere. Meeting and record rules include email votes and a requirement that a second deferral goes to two executives. Three routine measures are named for reporting. Drafting notes explain each choice and leave one question open for the first review.
Reading the NR 531 Week 6 grading rubric
Charter rubrics usually reward a clear purpose, appropriate membership, defined scope and authority, workable procedures, reporting lines and a review provision, presented in a professional format. Graders give the most credit to authority clauses specific enough to act on, because vague scope is the most common failure. Separating what the group approves from what it forwards shows understanding of governance. Procedures that address known problems, such as repeated deferrals, demonstrate analysis. Measures tied to evidence show the committee's purpose is grounded. Operating-document style, with reasoning kept in notes, suits the genre and supports the presentation score. Graders also look for a vacancy rule and a review clause, which drafts often omit.
Common NR 531 Week 6 mistakes, and how to avoid them
The most common mistake is a charter that says the group will oversee, guide or support something without listing a single decision it may make. Write the list. Another is membership by name instead of post, which dates the document. Students also write charters as persuasive essays; keep the charter flat and move the argument into notes. Avoid quorum rules the membership cannot meet. Include a rule for deferrals and escalation, or items will stall. Do not claim authority the organization reserves for another body, such as protocol approval. Finally, add a review clause, since committees tend to outlive the purpose they were created for.
Get a NR 531 Week 6 example written to your instructions
Send the prompt, the rubric and any template or example charter your section supplied, and we will write a custom NR 531 Week 6 draft to those exact clauses. It comes back inside 24-48h with the first one free, so you can read a complete adoptable document against your own before the scope section gets marked.
More NR 531 papers and MSN samples
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NR 531 Week 6 questions, answered
How long should a charter draft be?
Shorter than the effort it takes. Two to three pages covers everything most groups need, and length usually signals that explanation has crept in where clauses belong. Where a section publishes a template, use its headings even if some sections end up brief, because a marker checking against the template will look for each one. Supporting rationale, if the week asks for it, sits separately from the charter itself.
Can I draft a charter for a group that does not exist yet?
Yes, and it is often the cleaner assignment, since nothing has to be tactfully worked around. Ground it anyway: a real facility type, a real gap the group would close, real posts that would hold the seats. An invented group with a plausible structure marks well. What does not is a charter so generic it would suit any organization, because every clause then avoids the specifics being tested.
Does the charter need anything about ending the group?
A short clause helps and almost nobody includes one. Groups outlast the problem they were created for, and a line saying the charter is reviewed on a set date, with dissolution as one available outcome, prevents that. It also shows the writer thought past the launch. Where a template omits it, add it under review rather than inventing a new heading.
Where can I find a free NR 531 Week 6 sample paper?
The ten-clause nutrition committee charter above, with its drafting notes, is the full NR 531 Week 6 sample and anyone may read it free. If you are drafting a charter for another kind of group, share its purpose with us and a draft built around its authority clause can be prepared.
What is the most important clause in the NR 531 charter?
The clause listing what the group may approve without passing it upward. The sample's clause 4 names six decisions, and clause 5 lists what goes elsewhere, so the boundary can be read from both sides.