initially ? Can you gain strength from remembering those personal connections with your patients and the reasons that you ’ re there ?”
Wathen hoped that such inquiry would shift nurses ’ perspectives during an unprecedented time . “ One of the key messages around [ being ] rooted in strength , that I think we need to focus on , is flipping [ our mindset ],” she says .
In addition to helping nurses discover personal strength , Wathen says that her multifaceted leadership goals included championing nurses ’ perspectives to a larger audience . “ One of the biggest roles for me , as president , was advocacy — ensuring that nurses ’ concerns and nurses ’ voices were being heard .”
Within healthcare institutions , a professional governance structure creates the forum for nurses ’ interests to be valued and considered at an executive level . Such systems have long been a priority at Children ’ s Colorado , but when Wathen began working more closely with staff at other institutions , she noticed a growing chasm between frontline nurses and leadership .
“ Some hospitals still don ’ t have a chief nursing executive to advocate for nurses ,” she says . “ When tackling these longstanding staffing workforce challenges , we need to do it in collaboration with financial executives , health system executives — all of us working together to figure out how to move things forward .”
The absence of such collaboration , Wathen observed , is just one of many factors that contribute to unhealthy work environments — a leading factor of burnout among nurses .
“ You can ’ t have a thriving nursing workforce if you don ’ t focus on creating healthy work environments where they can thrive . AACN has led the work around [ the question ], ‘ What does it take to create a healthy work environment ?’” Wathen says . “ Our healthy work environment standards , I believe , are the absolute fundamental basics that all hospitals need to implement .”
According to Wathen , AACN ’ s six healthy work environment standards include :
Authentic leadership that is present and transparent True collaboration Appropriate staffing Skilled communication Effective decision making
“ One of the biggest roles for me , as president , was advocacy — ensuring that nurses ’ concerns and nurses ’ voices were being heard .”
BETH WATHEN
“ They ’ re things that I ’ ve seen and felt at Children ’ s Colorado for a long , long time . And I think it ’ s our way forward out of this ,” Wathen says .
She was also aware that nurses ’ voices weren ’ t being heard outside hospital walls , especially amidst the persistent challenges of COVID-19 . This inspired Wathen and other nurse leaders at AACN to launch Hear Us Out , a national media campaign that shares nurse stories , along with resources for navigating difficult conversations about vaccines with loved ones .
“ It really had a twofold purpose . One was to help address vaccine hesitancy with the public ,” Wathen says . “ The second point of that campaign was to share nurses ’ stories from the frontlines of this pandemic and to provide an avenue for their stories to be told . The public had no sense of what was happening there .”
The Hear Us Out campaign reached a broad national audience , with coverage in outlets such as NPR and The Atlantic . Sharing these stories was crucial for Wathen , because her career in nursing had shown her , firsthand , how nurses are perceived both by the public and within healthcare settings .
“ There are great misperceptions out there about nurses . They think we just follow orders , turn patients , etc . The public really doesn ’ t understand the incredible amount of critical thinking and knowledge that nurses have ,” she says . “ We ’ ve had a little bit of a door open for us , as a profession , to be able to change that misperception .”
Another way Wathen championed nurse perspectives during her presidency was through the official launch of the Nurse Staffing Think Tank , a partnership that began behind the scenes in 2017 between the AACN , American Nurses Association , American Organization for Nursing Leadership , Healthcare Financial Management Association and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement .
Meaningful recognition
12 2022 PCS Annual Report