The Pathway to Excellence Experience: One Psychiatric Hospital's Journey.

Psychiatric nurse executives and managers face an ongoing challenge to create positive professional work environments that support the recruitment and retention of the best nurses. The Pathway to Excellence program is an organizational credentialing program that designates a hospital as a workplace of choice for nursing. This article describes one psychiatric hospital's journey to become and maintain a Pathway to Excellence designation in the midst of transition.

Supporting a psychiatric hospital culture of safety.

Background: Concerns for patient safety have risen to the forefront of health care, including mental health care. Safe patient care depends, to a large extent, on high functioning teams, yet team training is lacking in basic professional training programs. To address the need for team training, one psychiatric hospital adopted the Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety program (TeamSTEPPS).

The therapeutic milieu reconceptualized for the 21st century.

The notion of the therapeutic milieu has come under fire for lack of relevance to current inpatient psychiatric care environments. Yet, in different fields of health care, scholars are suggesting a need to build healing environments. A view of the therapeutic milieu as an optimal healing environment based on continuous healing relationships, patient-centered care, safety as a systems priority, and cooperation among clinicians provides a framework to organize care in a holistic manner that supports positive health outcomes.