Highlights From the Creating Healthy Work Environments Conference

Eight years after the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses’ (AACN’s) Healthy Work Environment (HWE) Standards¹  were released, the first national HWE conference was held April 12–14, 2013, in Indianapolis, Indiana. I had the opportunity to attend and present at this conference, and this column is an overview of the highlights. The presentations were focused on research and implementation around creating HWEs and were sponsored by Sigma Theta Tau International. Attendees came from across the United States and 5 other countries. Two tracks of presentations, clinical and academic, focused on content areas related to those environments.

Past AACN Certification Corporation chair and current Sigma Theta Tau president, Suzanne Prevost, moderated the opening session. She acknowledged AACN for creating the standards. The opening panel included Dorrie Fontaine, an AACN past president; Beth Ulrich, consultant and senior partner of Innovative Health Resources; and Carol Huston, Dean of Nursing at Chico State. Fontaine...