The Five Rights Of A Healthy Work Environment

I recently gave a presentation at a northern California nursing conference on the subject of healthy work environments for nurses. During my preparations, I spent a great deal of time pondering aloud about the scourge of nurse bullying and lateral violence, as well as why healthcare workplaces lend themselves so readily to unhealthy work conditions.There are many reasons that bullying and unhealthy workplaces have become so common, and I ’m sure that you, dear Reader, can rattle off a few without even thinking too hard.Stressful DynamicsThe level of stress in the healthcare milieu seems to have increased with the years. Higher patient acuity, staffing issues, bullying, and other factors cause some nurses to leave workplaces for greener pastures -- others simply leave the profession altogether.We hear stories of nurses whose 12-hour shifts are really 13 hours (meaning one hour without pay because it ’s impossible to finish on time). We also hear about nurses who purposefully dehydrate themselves in order to avoid needing to use the restroom during a busy shift.These and other dynamics make nursing a profession to be feared and avoided at a time in history when we need more trained nurses than ever. With a rapidly aging population coupled with an exponential increase in obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and other chronic and preventable illnesses, we need a trained nursing workforce that ’s happy, healthy, engaged in their career, and ready to face the healthcare challenge...
Source: Digital Doorway - Category: Nursing Tags: healthcare nurse nurses nursing Source Type: blogs