Confirmation of a Healthy Work Environment Healthy

56 CRITICALCARENURSE Vol 28, No. 2, APRIL 2008 http://ccn.aacnjournals.org the work environment, implementation of improvement strategies, and confirmation of the success or failure of the strategies by clinical nurses at the front line. Professional organizations such as the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN), Joint Commission for Accreditation of Hospitals, Institute of Medicine, American Nurses’ Credentialing Center, American Organization of Nurse Executives, American Association of Colleges of Nursing, and Nursing Organizations Alliance have identified and established criteria for healthy, professional, magnetic, excellent, effective, and rewarding work environments. No matter what adjective is used to modify environment, common to all the organizations’ lists of environmental attributes is that the criteria focus on structures, policies, systems, and programs that reflect the perspective and domain of nurses in leadership roles and in executive practice. In this article, we consistently use “healthy” as defined in the AACN Standards for Establishing and Sustaining Healthy Work Environments and in our original construction of the Nursing Work Index. Healthy means productive, Marlene Kramer, RN, PhD Claudia Schmalenberg, RN, MSN Confirmation of a Healthy Work Environment Healthy Work Environments