Our acute care settings are in crisis—staff are physically and emotionally exhausted. And many have decided they can’t take it anymore.

“At the virtual conference of the American Organization for Nursing Leadership (AONL) in July, researcher Peter Buerhaus reported preliminary findings of his study on the impact of the pandemic on the nursing workforce. He reported that a phone survey of over 800 AONL members conducted in May revealed that more than 50% of hospital chief nurse officers were seeing “increased retirements, sick leave, and early exits, including among younger nurses.”— AJN Editorial, September 2021

It’s been no secret that the hospital work environment has been problematic for nurses and patients alike—we know stressed and worn-out clinicians make more errors, and patient care suffers. In 2004, the Institute of Medicine released Keeping Patients Safe: Transforming the Work Environment of Nurses, which discussed workplace staffing and processes as intrinsic to ensuring patient safety. More recently, the National Academy of Medicine published Taking Action Against Clinician Burnout: A Systems Approach to Professional Well-Being (2019), which noted, “The job demands placed on clinicians are often greater than the job resources available to them; this imbalance can lead to burnout.”

I’ve spoken with managers who are scrambling to hire nurses but finding few takers. Many nurses are now working for travel companies that offer lucrative pay. Hospitals are beginning to offer sizable sign-on bonuses, tuition loan forgiveness, and other perks, but that’s not going to fix the basic problem: the overwhelming, soul-crushing, day-to-day job stress.

Beth Wathen, MSN, RN, CCRN-K

I spoke last month with Beth Wathen, president of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN). (Listen to our conversation below.) Part of our discussion concerned the increased stress brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Wathen spoke about AACN’s ongoing initiative to create healthy work environments and noted that hospitals “must make staff well-being a priority” by equipping frontline managers with the ability to help staff and ensure they get support to step away when needed. Member feedback reinforces that staffing is a key issue. Keeping staff safe has been a key priority in Wathen’s own work as a clinical practice specialist at Children’s Hospital Colorado in Aurora, and she has carried that focus over to her work with AACN.

It needs to be everyone’s focus—otherwise, who will ensure safe care if nurses leave hospitals?

AJN editor-in-chief Shawn Kennedy speaks with Beth Wathen, AACN president: