Workforce – PatientCareLink

AHA: “Expanding the Reach” Workforce Strategies Guide

The AHA has released the fourth section of its workforce strategies guide, which is designed to help hospital and health system leaders navigate workforce challenges and opportunities. It focuses on hiring veterans, professional governance models, and academic-practice partnerships.

The guide was informed by the AHA Board of Trustees’ Task Force on Workforce and includes strategies, resources, and case studies from hospitals and health systems across the country.

Section 1 offered strategies and resources to support workforce wellbeing and behavioral health and prevent workplace violence. Section 2 focused on data and analytics, as well as technological supports. Section 3 focused on recruitment and retention, diversity and inclusion, and creative staffing models.

View AHA’s workforce webpage to download the all four sections of the guide, as well as additional resources.

ANA & AONL: Models of Care Insight Study

In March 2023, the American Nurses Association and American Organization for Nursing Leadership — in partnership with Healthcare Solutions Group and Joslin Insight — released a study to “probe and validate the current demand for change, the support of various roles and programs, and the gap between leadership and the frontline.”

The Models of Care Insight Study Survey takes into account feedback from 50 in-depth interviews with top national healthcare leaders. The survey itself garnered 3,385 responses from professionals across the country. Specific audiences included “direct care nurses, nursing leadership, and other healthcare executives in acute care and ambulatory settings.”

MHA Publishes Compendium of Care Innovations & Strategies

These approaches work in tandem with broader workforce development efforts, and allow healthcare professionals to provide safe, high-quality, and empowered care.

Workforce vacancies across the healthcare continuum are straining bed availability and creating capacity bottlenecks, leading providers to implement new and innovative strategies that can help maximize the talents of their caregivers. These approaches work in tandem with broader workforce development efforts, and allow healthcare professionals to provide safe, high-quality, and empowered care.

As the volume of these strategies continues to grow, MHA’s Continuum of Care Council created this
compendium to document both short- and long-term strategies and care models that may aid in patient care during this crisis and beyond.

While the compendium is not exhaustive, it pulls from the latest trends to showcase strategies that fit a range of settings and resource capabilities. Each strategy and care model has a brief description, linked resources to learn more, and surface barriers to implementation. MHA will also use this listing to guide our advocacy efforts to increase access to care and to empower the workers who make care possible

AONL: Nursing Leadership Workforce Compendium

In alignment with AONL’s strategic initiatives, the AONL Workforce Committee and subcommittees identified best practices and innovations to help strategize and manage the complexities of the nursing workforce. The goal of the AONL Workforce Compendium is to bring these best practices and innovations together to be shared widely, to support and empower nurse leaders in attaining, retaining, and sustaining environments where nurses want to work and feel like they belong.

Access the Workforce Comendium here.

AHA Issue Brief: Building a Safe Workplace and Community — Mitigating Risk of Violence

The American Hospital Association’s Hospitals Against Violence (HAV) initiative hosted the American Society for Health Care Risk Management (ASHRM) for a facilitated dialogue to explore challenges and current strategies to mitigate the risk of violence. The discussion fostered an exchange of ideas and solutions that informed this issue brief and accompanying case studies.

From AHA:

In 2021, HAV developed the Building a Safe Workplace and Community framework to guide health care leaders in their efforts to prevent and mitigate violence.

This issue brief examines risk mitigation and marks the first in a series that expand on each domain of the framework: culture of safety, violence intervention, trauma support and risk mitigation. This issue brief is an outgrowth of a series of discussions between hospital and risk management leaders. The brief shares considerations when assessing potential risks, strategies to mitigating violence and insights on making the care environment safer.

View the issue brief here.

Building-a-Safe-Workplace-and-Community-Mitigating-the-Risk-of-Violence Download

HRET Culture of Safety Change Package

This change package is a summary of themes from the successful practices of high performing health organizations across the country. It was developed through clinical practice sharing, organization site visits and subject matter expert contributions. This change package includes a menu of strategies, change concepts and specific actionable items that any hospital can choose to implement based on need or for purposes of improving patient quality of life and care. This change package is intended to be complementary to literature reviews and other evidence-based tools and resources.

What is the Cycle of Violence?

According to the AHA/ACHI Hospital Approaches to Interrupt the Cycle of Violence guide, exposure to violence significantly increases the likelihood of an individual being a perpetrator of violence or experiencing repeated violent injury in the future, creating an ongoing cycle of violence.

Prevention poses a challenge because violence occurs as part of a cycle of learned behaviors that are further perpetuated by an individual’s exposure to trauma. Though it may appear to be an intractable problem, violence can be prevented by addressing the underlying socioeconomic, environmental and behavioral risk factors that increase the likelihood that an individual will become a victim or perpetrator of violence.

Hospitals can play an important role at each level of prevention. By partnering with community stakeholders, hospitals can implement primary prevention approaches to address risk factors at the relationship, community and society levels and help prevent violence from occurring.

Read the entire report here...

Through the Eyes of the Workforce: Creating Joy, Meaning, & Safer Health Care

Workplace safety is inextricably linked to patient safety. Unless caregivers are given the protection, respect, and support they need, they are more likely to make errors, fail to follow safe practices, and not work well in teams. A new report from the Lucian Leape Institute looks at the current state of health care as a workplace, highlights vulnerabilities common in health care organizations, discusses the costs of inaction, and outlines what a healthy and safe workplace would look like. The report concludes with seven recommendations for actions that organizations need to pursue to effect real change.

Read full report...

Seasonal Influenza A (H3N2) Activity & Antiviral Treatment of Patients with Influenza

In the United States (U.S.), influenza activity has increased significantly over recent weeks with influenza A(H3N2) viruses predominating so far this season. In the past, A(H3N2) virus-predominant influenza seasons have been associated with more hospitalizations and deaths in persons aged 65 years and older and young children compared to other age groups. In addition, influenza vaccine effectiveness (VE) in general has been lower against A(H3N2) viruses than against influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 or influenza B viruses. Last season, VE against circulating influenza A(H3N2) viruses was estimated to be 32% in the U.S.

CDC expects that VE could be similar this season, should the same A(H3N2) viruses continue to predominate. For this reason, in addition to influenza vaccination for prevention of influenza, the use of antiviral medications for treatment of influenza becomes even more important than usual. The neuraminidase inhibitor (NAI) antiviral medications are most effective in treating influenza and reducing complications when treatment is started early. Evidence from previous influenza seasons suggests that NAI antivirals are underutilized in outpatients and hospitalized patients with influenza who are recommended for treatment.

Resources:

CDC guidance about antiviral treatment and prophylaxis for influenza can be found here.

CDC guidance about flu diagnosis can be found here.

The recently redesigned MDPH Flu website has information for providers and the general public. Click on ‘Information for Healthcare and Public Health Professionals’ for such provider resources as influenza control guidance, model standing orders, screening forms and planning clinics and campaigns.

Click here for the CDC Health Advisory on Seasonal Influenza A(H3N2) Activity and Antiviral Treatment of Patients with Influenza

American Hospital Association’s Hospital Against Violence Campaign

The AHA 's Hospitals Against Violence Hope (#HAVhope) Friday is a digital media campaign focused on bringing national attention to ending all forms of violence and encouraging hospitals, health systems and community organizations to stand together against violence. Become a supporter by tweeting or submitting a photo that highlights your efforts of combatting violence in the community you serve.

Eugene WoodsThe June 9 HAVhope Day of Awareness is an outgrowth of a Hospital Against Violence campaign initiated by the AHA Board of Trustees to give voice to hospital efforts that combat violence in their communities and their facilities. While violence is different from one community to another, it has become a major public health and safety issue for nearly everyone in our country. In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 2.3 million people are treated in U.S. emergency departments each year for violent injuries and violence costs more than $85 billion annually in medical expenses and lost productivity. What is constant, however, is the commitment of hospitals and health systems in helping their employees, patients and communities address violence in whatever form it may take.

Quick Facts:

More than 55,000 deaths and 2.5 million violence-related injuries occur every year (AHA)
On average, nearly 20 people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner in the United States (NCADV)
12 percent of nonprofit hospitals identified community violence prevention as a priority need in their community health needs assessment (AHA)

Podcasts on Violence Prevention

As part of the Hospitals Against Violence campaign, the AHA interviewed various hospitals across the country that have institutionalized a violence prevention program upon learning violence is a prominent health issue in the communities they serve. Listen to some initiatives hospitals have adopted to combat violence in their community.