Healthy Work Environments: Partnerships Make It Possible

Ellis-Scharfenberg, Karen

Tuesday, July 12, 2011: 8:50 AM

Irmajean Bajnok, RN, MSN, PhD
International Affairs and Best Practice Guidelines Programs, Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario, Toronto, ON, Canada
Karen Ellis-Scharfenberg, RN, BScN, MBA
Centre for Professional Nursing Excellence, Registered Nurses Association of Ontario, Toronto, ON, Canada

Learning Objective 1: The learner will be able to identify the components of a healthy work environment.

Learning Objective 2: The learner will be able to describe how implementing healthy work environment best practices foster healthy workplaces resulting in positive nurse, patient and organization outcomes.

A healthy work environment is paramount to quality patient care, nurse satisfaction, and organizational effectiveness. Based on this vital component of quality care and organizational excellence, and to better enable uptake of clinical best practice guidelines, a professional nursing association developed six foundational healthy work environment best practice guidelines. These guidelines support evidence-informed management decision making in areas of leadership, teamwork, professionalism, and workload and staffing, working with culturally diverse teams, and workplace health safety and wellbeing. The guidelines include evidence-based individual, education, and organizational recommendations that when implemented support a healthy work environment.

In 2005, a four year project was initiated in partnership with nine health care organizations to examine the process and outcomes related to the implementation of select healthy work environment best practice guidelines on specific organizational units/teams, in the pilot sites. This presentation will outline the nature of the comprehensive research, based on a pre and post test methodology, undertaken to determine the impact of the healthy work environment guidelines on key nurse and organizational variables. Results showed the profound impact that a focus on creating a healthy work environment can have on nurse, patient, and organizational outcomes. In addition, implementing healthy work environment best practices made a difference for nurses in their perceptions of the work environment. These same nurses reported that they perceived the quality of their care improved, that the guidelines fit with their workplaces and that they would continue to focus on the elements of a healthy work environment. Key recommendations inform strategies for successful guideline implementation, and delineate how outcomes resulting from healthy work environment best practice guideline implementation can influence organizational effectiveness and efficiency and quality care in varied practice settings locally, nationally and internationally.

See more of: Strategies for Measuring and Creating Outcomes
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