Overview and Summary: Promoting Healthy Work Environments: A Shared Responsibility

Citation: Ives Erickson, J., (Jan. 31, 2010) "Overview and Summary: Promoting Healthy Work Environments: A Shared Responsibility" OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing Vol. 15, No. 1, Manuscript Overview. DOI: 10.3912/OJIN.Vol15No01ManOS The legacy of Florence Nightingale regarding the importance of total healing environments for patients has had a momentous influence on the development of the fundamental values of healthy work environments. In January, 2005 the American Association of Critical Care Nurses released their standards for Establishing and Sustaining Healthy Work Environments; A Journey to Excellence. These essential standards include skilled communication, true collaboration, staffing, meaningful recognition, and authentic leadership. These standards have since been adopted by numerous professional nursing organizations and strategically integrated into their work. In 2006, Shirey described healthy work environments as "supportive of the whole human being," "patient-focused," and "joyful workplaces. " As Nightingale's beliefs contributed to the healing of patients, research has demonstrated that a healthy work environment leads to both improved patient outcomes and increased nursing satisfaction. In contrast unhealthy work environments have been linked with medical errors, ineffective delivery of care, conflict, and stress among health professionals. The articles in this topic elaborate on the essential elements of and strategies to create healthy work environments. Readers have a unique opportunity to learn, at the strategic planning level, both tactics for implementation of healthy work environments and effective mechanisms for evaluation. The articles describe competencies for nursing leadership development, strategies to enhance autonomy and control over practice, a model for becoming a skilled communicator, insight into the cognitive work of nursing, strategies to address abusive behavior and tools to evaluate the academic work environment. Sherman and Pross address the significant role of nurse leaders in building and sustaining healthy work environments in Growing Future Nurse Leaders to Build and Sustain Healthy Work Environments at the Unit Level. They introduce a competency model for nursing leadership development, namely the "Nurse Manager Collaborative Learning Domain Framework," which includes three domains: The Leader Within: Creating the Leader in Yourself; The Art of Leadership: Leading People; and The Science of Leadership: Managing the Business. They note that personal mastery is a critical component for leadership success and that outstanding leaders value the importance of emotional intelligence in leadership. Although the authors define leadership as both an art and a science, they note it is the art of leadership that requires us to think about leadership in terms of meaningful relationships, especially with the nurturing of future leaders. In addition, they address the importance of secession planning to assure that emerging leaders are successful in continuing the very important work of improving the environment for both nurses and patients. In Strategies for Enhancing Autonomy and Control Over Nursing Practice, Weston discusses the value of autonomy and control over practice in promoting a healthy work environment and offers strategies to enhance these elements in the work environment. She describes strategies for enhancing autonomy, including setting clear expectations for utilizing nursing knowledge and developing expertise in making independent and sound clinical judgments. In achieving control over practice, Weston stresses the importance of influencing decisions that impact the nature, scope, and context of their practice. She cites the importance of formal structures that allow nurses to participate in organizational decisions and the need for power to make decisions. In essence, the visionary nurse leader supports the engagement, inclusion, and ownership of nurses over their clinical practice thus setting the context for high levels of these elements within an organization. …