Engaging Stakeholders to Co-design an Academic Practice Strategic Plan in an Integrated Health System: The Key Roles of the Nurse Executive and Planning Team.

As key members of the executive team, nurse executives play an integral role in the planning process and operationalization of strategic imperatives to ensure the overall success of the organization. Nurse executives are leading organizations through transition periods that require transformational leadership. Leaders must design a shared vision and set strategic priorities; empower others to lead; ensure access to resources needed for safe care delivery; and inspire people to meet the demands of the future.

Resilience training for hospital workers in anticipation of an influenza pandemic.

Background: Well before the H1N1 influenza, health care organizations worldwide prepared for a pandemic of unpredictable impact. Planners anticipated the possibility of a pandemic involving high mortality, high health care demands, rates of absenteeism rising up to 20-30% among health care workers, rationing of health care, and extraordinary psychological stress.

Method: The intervention we describe emerged from the recognition that an expected influenza pandemic indicated a need to build resilience to maintain the health of individuals within the organization and to protect the capacity of the organization to respond to extraordinary demands.

Computer-assisted resilience training to prepare healthcare workers for pandemic influenza: a randomized trial of the optimal dose of training.

Background: Working in a hospital during an extraordinary infectious disease outbreak can cause significant stress and contribute to healthcare workers choosing to reduce patient contact. Psychological training of healthcare workers prior to an influenza pandemic may reduce stress-related absenteeism, however, established training methods that change behavior and attitudes are too resource-intensive for widespread use. This study tests the feasibility and effectiveness of a less expensive alternative - an interactive, computer-assisted training course designed to build resilience to the stresses of working during a pandemic.

The prevalence of childhood adversity among healthcare workers and its relationship to adult life events, distress and impairment.

Objective: We investigated the prevalence of childhood adversity among healthcare workers and if such experiences affect responses to adult life stress.

Methods: A secondary analysis was conducted of a 2003 study of 176 hospital-based healthcare workers, which surveyed lifetime traumatic events, recent life events, psychological distress, coping, social support, and days off work due to stress or illness.

Results: Sixty eight percent (95% CI 61.

Applying the lessons of SARS to pandemic influenza: an evidence-based approach to mitigating the stress experienced by healthcare workers.

We describe an evidence-based approach to enhancing the resilience of healthcare workers in preparation for an influenza pandemic, based on evidence about the stress associated with working in healthcare during the SARS outbreak. SARS was associated with significant long-term stress in healthcare workers, but not with increased mental illness. Reducing pandemic-related stress may best be accomplished through interventions designed to enhance resilience in psychologically healthy people.

The immediate psychological and occupational impact of the 2003 SARS outbreak in a teaching hospital.

Background: The outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in Toronto, which began on Mar. 7, 2003, resulted in extraordinary public health and infection control measures. We aimed to describe the psychological and occupational impact of this event within a large hospital in the first 4 weeks of the outbreak and the subsequent administrative and mental health response.