Spotlights: Professional Associations Operational Strategies
We spotlight professional associations - including accrediting and certifying bodies and professional organizations that support and represent members - across the Actionable Strategy areas. Our intent is not to capture every professional association working to improve well-being. Rather, we highlight the work of organizations that other professional associations, health and public safety organizations, and individual workers and learners might seek to advance.
Ensuring Physical & Mental Health
Spotlights
The Joint Commission introduced new workplace violence prevention standards in 2022, requiring a process for continual monitoring related to workplace violence and training, education, and resources on workplace violence. The website also provides a compendium of resources and a mechanism to report a patient safety concern, although not a workplace violence event.
The National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians released the Guide to Building an Effective EMS Wellness and Resilience Program. The guide includes information on: Building a Culture of Wellness and Resilience, Mental and Emotional Health, Critical Incident Stress Management, Physical Health, Engaging the Community
The American Psychiatric Association Foundation’s Center for Workplace Mental Health provides a guide to help employers successfully plan a mental health initiative.
The Association of American Medical Colleges shares strategies to address threats against healthcare workers, including identifying security risks, calling in de-escalation teams, training staff in violence prevention, and ensuring leadership commitment to a safe and secure working environment.
The American Nurses Association provides several resources related to workplace prevention and ending abuse against nurses, including an issue brief Reporting Incidents of Violence, a webinar: Workplace Violence Against Nurses: What You Can Do, of which excerpts are available on YouTube, a handout on OSHA Standards Needed to Prevent Workplace Violence, which advocates for the development of enforceable federal standards that establish active roles for health workers to identify and address the risks of violence in their workplace settings.
Workloads and Workflows
Spotlights
The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses’ Resources for Staffing in Acute & Critical Care includes recommendations from their Nurse Staffing Task Force and case studies of nurse staffing solutions (optimizing teams). Resources include the Taskforce Recommendations, and Nurse Staffing Think Tank: Priority Topics and Recommendations
The American Federation of Teachers, a union that represents many professions, including nurses and other healthcare professionals, released the Healthcare Staffing Shortage Task Force Report, which outlines potential factors driving the staffing crisis and strategies to address it.
In 2019, an American Board of Medical Specialties' Vision initiative Commission made 14 recommendations to its member Board, including alternative solutions to burdensome point-in-time examinations and consistent and fair processes for continuing certification. A number of Boards have changed their continuing certification programs as a result.
The American Medical Association has multiple resources available on their website, including the De-Implementation Checklist and Getting Rid of the Stupid Stuff STEPS Forward module, which both share examples of organizations that have successfully reduced unnecessary burdens, and the Team-Based Care and Workflow resources & Electronic Health Record Optimization: Strategies to Help Organizations Maximize Benefits and Minimize Burdens STEPS Forward module, which provides toolkits that can improve electronic health record (EHR) benefits and workflows
The American Association of Colleges of Nursing accreditation standards require baccalaureate and graduate nursing curriculum to foster interprofessional collaborative practice.
Rewarding & Recognizing Workers and Learners
Spotlights
The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) implemented a new institutional requirement to have leave policies that include at least six paid weeks off for medical, parental, and caregiver leave that became effective July 2022.
The Psychologically Healthy Fire Departments Implementation Toolkit from the National Volunteer Fire Council, the Firefighter Behavioral Health Alliance, and the American Psychological Association includes a section on Member Recognition and Effective Communication.
The National Association of Community Health Workers highlights in its Six Pillars of Community Health Workers that “CHWs are a precarious workforce” - majority female, among the lowest paid health professionals, and on the frontlines exposing them to communicable diseases, violence, and other forms of secondary trauma. As such, they advocate for policies that will support the CHW workforce, including sustainable financing.
