Critical Care Nurses’ Work Environments 2008: A Follow-Up Report

Summary The American Association ofCritical-Care Nurses continues itsleading role in advocating for thefundamental need for healthy workenvironments, not only in highacuity and critical care areas, butacross all of health care. The 2008follow-up survey enabled us toevaluate the status of work environ-ments 2 years after the originalbaseline survey and nearly 4 yearsafter release of the AACN Stan-dards for Establishing and Sustain-ing Healthy Work Environments.Although the 2008 survey did notreveal dramatic improvements, nei-ther did it show backsliding, evenas the American health care systemcontinues to be severely strained. The AACN healthy work envi-ronment standards affirm that“adequately addressing the reput-edly ‘soft’ issues that involve rela-tionships is the key to halting theepidemic of treatment-related harmto patients and the continued ero-sion of the bottom line in health-care organizations.” 12(p12) It is criticalto maintain a relentless focus onensuring healthy work environmentsto retain nurses in high acuity andcritical care areas and ultimatelyimprove the quality of care affordedto patients and their families. With-out implementing the fundamental