Strengthening Healthy Work Environment Outcomes Via Interprofessional Direct Care Champion Roles.

Objective: To provide an organization-wide, systematic approach to creating and sustaining healthy work environments (HWEs) through frontline interprofessional staff education and coaching engagement.

Background: HWE has been an overarching concept in the organization's nursing professional practice model since 2014; however, few practice settings routinely translated survey findings to improve the work environment's health via local interprofessional direct care team members.

Methods: The program used a participatory approach where HWE champions committed to participate in centralized professional development activities and local quality improvement initiatives to bolster the health of area work environments.

Results: Fifty-one champions representing 44 practice settings participated in the professional development program. Mean HWE scores for all standards increased from year 1 to 2, with 15 practice settings seeing categorical improvement. Meaningful recognition and true collaboration were the standards most often targeted for improvement.

Conclusion: The HWE champion role appears to be a promising strategy for engaging frontline interprofessional staff in the assessment and implementation of initiatives to improve the health of work environments.