[This is an excerpt.] Our vision is to be the best place to work in healthcare. To this end, we strive to create an exceptional work experience for our caregivers where they feel safe, valued, supported and empowered to voice ideas and concerns. Our caregiver engagement initiatives are an important aspect of our workplace culture and support our efforts to attract and retain top talent. [To read more, click View Resource.]
This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Health Organizations: Empowering Worker & Learner Voice (Worker & Learner Engagement).
Caregiver Engagement
[This is an excerpt.] Cleveland Clinic has an extensive safety program to inform and protect our caregivers. Our safety teams are responsible for providing training and resources to prevent safety events, responding when events occur, and reviewing safety performance for continuous improvement. Our Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) team monitors and implements safety practices at our main campus and family health centers. Each Cleveland Clinic hospital maintains safety plans specific to their unique environment of care. [To read more, click View Resource.]
This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Health Organizations: Empowering Worker & Learner Voice (Worker & Learner Engagement).
Caregiver Safety
[This is an excerpt.] Our experts understand the importance of helping you to foster a nurturing and supportive work environment that enables your team to thrive.
The WorkLife Wellbeing Operational Framework addresses each of the factors that contribute to a caregivers wellbeing, and is designed to:
- Acknowledge the relationship between work experience and overall WorkLife Wellbeing.
- Establish a common language around wellbeing that is applicable to a broad workforce with varying wellbeing needs.
- Highlight the strategic partnerships and varied approaches that can be utilized to address wellbeing concerns. [To read more, click View Resource.]
This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Health Organizations: Aligning Values (Establish a Culture of Shared Commitment).
Center for WorkLife Wellbeing Framework: Exploring the Link Between Personal and WorkLife Wellbeing
Learn how to identify and assess community concerns, needs, and assets.
This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Health Organizations: Aligning Values (Invest/Advocate for Patients, Communities, & Workers).
Chapter 3. Assessing Community Needs and Resources
[This is an excerpt.] Taking Action Against Clinician Burnout: A Systems Approach to Supporting Professional Well-Being, a 2019 report from the National Academy of Medicine, identifies clinician burnout as a threat to the quality of patient care. Mounting system pressures within the U.S. health care system have contributed to an imbalance in which the demands of the clinician’s job are greater than the resources and supports available to them.
Taking Action Against Clinician Burnout was released before the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Addressing clinician burnout remains critical and more relevant than ever in the context of the pandemic and increased strains placed on the U.S. health care system. The report and its related products ultimately aim to help support clinician well-being and patient care, during COVID-19 and beyond. Targeting health information technology (IT) can be a major opportunity to address workplace hardships and prioritize improvements in work and learning environments in all settings, as the health care workforce was burdened prior to COVID-19 and now faces additional stressors that will have impacts on their health and well-being in the long term.
Health care leaders should implement health IT that supports clinicians in providing high-quality patient care. This requires the engagement of leaders across the organization, including hospital boards, executive officers and senior leaders, department chairs, and administrative and operational leaders, as well as health IT vendors, regulators, policymakers, and end users – clinicians and patients. [To read more, click View Resource.]
This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Health Organizations: Improving Workload & Workflows (Reducing Administrative Burdens).
Checklist for Health Care Leadership on Health IT and Clinician Burnout
[This is an excerpt.] Welcome to the American Hospital Association’s Community Health Assessment Toolkit. As in earlier releases, this updated toolkit provides a nine-step guide for hospitals and health systems to collaborate with their communities and strategic partners to conduct a community health assessment (CHA) and meet community health needs assessment (CHNA) requirements. [To read more, click View Resource.]
This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Health Organizations: Aligning Values (Invest/Advocate for Patients, Communities, & Workers).
Community Health Assessment Toolkit
[This is an excerpt.] The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has a critical responsibility to advance the connectivity of electronic health information and interoperability of health information technology (healthIT). This is consistent with its mission to protect the health of all Americans and provide essential humanservices, especially for those who are least able to help themselves. This work has become particularly urgent with the need to address the national priority of better and more affordable health care, leading to better population health. Achieving this goal will only be possible with a strong, flexible health IT ecosystem that can appropriately support transparency and decision-making, reduce redundancy, inform payment reform, and help to transform care into a model that enhances access and truly addresses health beyond the confines of the health care system. Such an infrastructure will support more efficient and effective systems, scientific advancement, and lead to a continuously improving health system that empowers individuals, customizes treatment, and accelerates cure of disease. [To read more, click View Resource.]
Connecting Health and Care for the Nation: A 10-Year Vision to Achieve an Interoperable Health IT Infrastructure
[This is an excerpt.] Our organizations represent health care providers (physicians, pharmacists, medical groups, andhospitals) and health plans. We have partnered to identify opportunities to improve the prior authorization process, with the goals of promoting safe, timely, and affordable access to evidence-based care for patients; enhancing efficiency; and reducing administrative burdens. The prior authorization process can be burdensome for all involved—health care providers, healthplans, and patients. Yet, there is wide variation in medical practice and adherence to evidence-based treatment. Communication and collaboration can improve stakeholder understanding of the functions and challenges associated with prior authorization and lead to opportunities to improve the process, promote quality and affordable health care, and reduce unnecessary burdens. [To read more, click View Resource.]
This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Other Private Organizations: Private Payers
Consensus Statement on Improving the Prior Authorization Process
AACN is excited to announce new diversity & inclusion program offerings, including Fundamentals of Holistic Admissions Review; Measurement and Evaluation of Your Holistic Admissions Review Process; Creating an Inclusive Learning Environment; Fostering Success of Students from Diverse Backgrounds; and Recruitment, Hiring, and Retention of Nursing Faculty from Diverse Backgrounds.
This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Health Organizations: Promoting Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion.
Diversity & Inclusion Workshops
The American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) is leading the profession to be more diverse, equitable, and inclusive through its commitment to developing diversity, equity, inclusion, justice, access, and belonging (DEIJAB) resources and tools to strengthen occupational therapy practitioners' contribution to a healthy and engaged community.
This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Professional Associations: Spotlights: Professional Associations Relational Strategies (Improving Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion).
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Justice, Access & Belonging in OT
At the Ford Foundation, we believe a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is critical to the success of any social justice organization. We have created a toolkit to help funders, organizations and the philanthropic community at large identify and instill best practices for DEI-related issues.
The case studies and guides draw from four real-life scenarios to help grantmakers and grantees become more adept in establishing processes and policies in their own work.
This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Other Private Organizations: Foundations & Other Organizations.
Diversity, Inclusion and Equity Tools and Resources for Grantmakers
[This is an excerpt.] The Strategic Framework takes a tripartite approach — involving EU institutions, Member States, social partners and other stakeholders — and focuses on three key priorities: 1.) anticipating and managing change in the context of green, digital and demographic transitions; 2.) improving the prevention of work-related accidents and diseases, and striving towards a Vision Zero approach to work-related deaths; 3.) increasing preparedness to respond to current and future health crises. [To read more, click View Resource.]
This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Government: Ensuring Workers' Physical and Mental Health (Strengthen Occupational Safety and Health Policies).
EU Strategic Framework on Health and Safety at Work 2021-2027
Giving Voice to Values (GVV) is an innovative approach to values-driven leadership development in business education and the workplace.
This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Health Organizations: Aligning Values (Establish a Culture of Shared Commitment).
Giving Voice to Values
A vast body of respected work on job quality measures exists, however, none yet are worker-informed, equity-centered and specifically designed for the unique challenges of the caregiving sector, which is one of the most occupationally segregated and lowest compensated industries in the country. To that end, The Center for Equity created the following Good Jobs Measures derived from existing, recognized job quality measures and principles (laid out in the AirTable at the bottom of this webpage in the “Conventional Job Quality Measure” column), and filtered through our worker-centered, equity-oriented framework. Our framework and the specific workplace challenges covered by these measures were informed by a “Black Women Best” framework and through the participatory qualitative research we conducted in January 2022 in partnership with caregivers active in SEIU Local 2015 who identify as Black women. The result is a set of worker-informed job quality metrics tailored to the workplace challenges endemic to home care and nursing homes affecting the majority BIPOC and immigrant women caregiving workforce.
This set of pre-researched job quality measures intends to help equip advocates with a worker-centered job quality roadmap. We hope that stakeholders and use the measures and adapt them to their needs in guiding federal, state and local policymakers to maximize the impact of public funding, ensure public dollars are spent on good quality, family-sustaining jobs. Centering equity and worker voice in long-term care is a necessary and long-overdue practice, and we hope to support states, employers and other stakeholders in course-correcting on the racist, sexist legacy of care work in America, beginning with how care job quality is measured.
This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Health Organizations: Measurement & Accountability.
Good Jobs Measure: Introducing the “Good Jobs Measures” Toolkit: Building Equity & Job Quality Infrastructure in Long-Term Care
[This is an excerpt.] The resource center is designed to provide information to help you on the journey to health care equity, regardless of where you are on the path. For example, it has basic information on how to screen for health-related social needs and how to stratify measures to examine health care disparities. We have included brief synopses of approaches used by other organizations (Snapshots) and videos of organizations’ lessons learned (Soundbites). The resource center also has more advanced materials, such as examples of published, successful interventions to address common disparities that you may wish to implement in your organization and include in your action plan. We will be continuously monitoring the literature and talking with organizations so we can expand and improve the resource center. Sign up to be alerted when new resources are added. [To read more, click View Resource.]
This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Health Organizations: Aligning Values (Invest/Advocate for Patients, Communities, & Workers).
Health Care Equity Accreditation Resource Center
Violence in the workplace continues to be an area that risk professionals need to be proactively preparing their institutions to prevent. At the same time, the risk professional needs to know what to do in the event they are faced with an immediate situation. This toolkit is designed to assist with both.
ASHRM’s risk assessment looks at the following proactive and reactive areas:
- Patient-to-Staff Violence: proactive prevention, reactive response
- Visitor/Family-to-Staff Violence: proactive prevention, reactive response
- Staff-to-Staff Violence/Harassment: proactive prevention, reactive response
- Physician/Third-Party-Professional-to-Staff Violence/Harassment: proactive prevention, reactive response
- Stranger/Nonemployee-to-Staff Violence: proactive prevention
This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Health Organizations: Ensuring Physical & Mental Health (Workplace Violence Prevention).
Health Care Facility Workplace Violence Risk Assessment Toolkit
[This is an excerpt.] The goal of the program is to unite the healthcare community in building a culture committed to increasing joy in medicine for the profession nationwide. The program aims to build awareness about solutions that promote professional fulfillment and spur investment within health systems to reduce physician burnout. The program is also designed as a roadmap for health system leaders to implement programs and policies that support physician well-being. [To read more, click View Resource.]
Health System Roadmap
[This is an excerpt.] You may suspect or discover your loved one is dealing with a mental illness,drinking too much, or using drugs. As a family member, you can play a central role in getting them the help they need. [To read more, click View Resource.]
Helping a Loved One Dealing with Mental and/or Substance Use Disorders
[This is an excerpt.] Home care workers provide support to people with disabilities and older adults so that they may receive care and remain in their own homes. Widely preferred by care recipients and the aging adult population, home care is one of the fastest-growing jobs in the country. Yethome care workers – who are disproportionately women, and Black, Indigenous, and people of color – are under-paid and undervalued, contributing to chronic staffing shortages and high turnover in the field.During the COVID-19 pandemic, some states used the emergency influx of federal Medicaid dollars to implement hazard pay, a significant but temporary increase in home care workers’ wages. This case study is based on in-depth interviews and a statewide survey sent to 42,000 caregivers and completed by 5,307 caregivers who received hazard pay in Washington State. It provides evidence that even a $2.50 increase in home care wages yields significant measurable improvements in caregivers’ housing and food security, access to healthcare,mental health, savings, and well-being – as well as their ability and willingness to take andstay in these critical jobs. [To read more, click View Resource.]
This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Health Organizations: Meaningful Rewards& Recognition (Adequate Compensation) AND Actionable Strategies for Government: Fair and Meaningful Reward & Recognition (Strengthen Worker Compensation and Benefits).
Higher Home Care Wages Reduce Economic Hardship and Improve Recruitment and Retention in One of the Country’s Fastest-Growing Jobs
AACN now offers Holistic Admissions Review workshop training, which is designed to help universities consider a broad range of factors reflecting the applicant’s academic readiness, contribution to the incoming class, and potential for success both in school and later as a professional. If you are interested in this workshop being offered at your school or other diversity services please complete the Diversity Service Request.
This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Health Organizations: Promoting Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion.
