AACN Standards for a Healthy Work Environment

With the aging of the baby boomer generation, standards of care in many health-related fields have come under scrutiny. In 2001, the American Association of Critical Care Nurses (AACN) resolved to take action in its area of care, putting forward a set of six standards necessary to a healthy workplace. This, the AACN argues, affects patient safety, the retention and recruitment of qualified nurses and ultimately the facility's bottom line.

Skilled Communication

• The ability to communicate clearly is a fundamental job skill for nurses, affecting aspects of the workplace including conflict management, negotiation, patient care and advocacy. The AACN calls on health care organizations to support their members by accessible training, and programs that support and reward excellent communications.

True Collaboration

• Although nurses are the primary caregivers in most facilities, they often feel shut out of the decision-making process. This standard calls on workplaces to foster a collaborative spirit, involving nurses and other caregivers in the processes of decision-making and conflict resolution.

Effective Decision-Making

• Just as communication is essential to collaboration, so is collaboration to effective decision-making. The AACN's standard calls for a health care organization to be clear about its institutional values, making them a part of the decision-making process. The organization must foster an environment that includes collaborative goal setting, negotiation, conflict management and ongoing improvement in the workplace.

Appropriate Staffing

• Staffing is one of the most crucial issues in health care, and the AACN's standards call for organizations to establish formal systems for evaluation of their staffing and its effect on patient outcomes. Crucial considerations include not just the number of staff, but whether its training and skills correspond to the needs of the patient.

Meaningful Recognition

• Formal programs of employee recognition are often derided by the uninformed as meaningless. However, the AACN perceives recognition programs as valuable feedback that reinforces an institution's commitment to excellence. Effective programs must be clear, well understood by staff, and remain pertinent at every career stage.

Authentic Leadership

• A challenge to its own members, the association's call for leadership within the nursing community recognizes that none of these standards can be effective without "buy in" from the nurses themselves. Workplaces, for their part, should create formal programs that foster leadership through education and recognition.

Implementation

• The AACN's standards are process-driven, and therefore more difficult to implement than simpler initiatives, such as cleaning standards. For this reason, the association has created a number of tools to assist its members and their workplaces in adopting them. The group's website offers a workplace assessment tool, access to approved speakers who can explain and promote the program and a variety of other resources.