132: Safer Together | The Nurse Well-Being Imperative
63 min
Workforce Safety and Well-Being in Healthcare: A Foundation for Patient Safety
Protecting nurses and healthcare workers physically and mentally is not just one component of the Safer Together National Action Plan; it may be the one that holds all the others together.
Safer Together Episode 3: Advancing Nurse and Healthcare Worker Well-Being
In this third episode of our Safer Together series, Patricia McGaffigan, RN, MS, Vice President of Safety at IHI, President of the Certification Board for Professionals in Patient Safety, and co-chair of the National Steering Committee for Patient Safety talks with Christine Pabico, Senior Director of the American Nurses Credentialing Center's Pathway to Excellence and Well-Being Excellence Programs. Patricia and Christine trace the development of ANCC's Well-Being Excellence Credential, the first of its kind to encompass the entire workforce across every type of care setting.
The ANCC Well-Being Excellence Credential: A New Standard for Healthcare Workforce Mental Health
We also hear from two of its pilot organizations, Children's National Hospital in Washington, D.C., and BayCare Health System in Tampa Bay, to hear how they became certified through the ANCC Wellbeing Certification and what that means for their organizations.
Speakers and Healthcare Safety Leaders Featured in This Episode
Patricia McGaffigan, MS, RN, CPPS · Senior Advisor for Safety, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI); President, Certification Board for Professionals in Patient Safety; Co-chair, National Steering Committee for Patient Safety
Christine Pabico, PhD, RN, NE-BC, FAAN · Senior Director, Pathway to Excellence and Well-Being Excellence, American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC)
Nikki Daily · Chief Team Resources Officer, BayCare Health System
Rocky Hauch, DNP, RN, PCCN · Advanced Professional Development Practitioner and Nurse Well-Being Lead, BayCare Health System
Trish Shucoski, DNP, MSN, RN, NEA-BC · Chief Nurse Executive, BayCare Health System
Simmy King, DNP, MS, MBA, NI-BC, NE-BC, CHSE, FAAN · Chief Nursing Informatics and Education Officer; Associate Professor of Pediatrics, The George Washington University School of Medicine
The Safer Together Series: A National Call to Action for Patient and Workforce Safety
In the first episode of our Safer Together Series, Donald Berwick, MD, co-founder and President Emeritus of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, and Patricia McGaffigan, RN, MS, Vice President of Safety at IHI, President of the Certification Board for Professionals in Patient Safety, and co-chair of the National Steering Committee for Patient Safety, issued a call to action: safety is not a matter of individual effort; it is a total system responsibility, built on four interlocking pillars, one of which is workforce safety and well-being.
In the second episode, Kelly Randall, PhD, Vice President for Patient Safety and Regulatory Services at Ascension, where she leads the health system's comprehensive patient safety program, high reliability strategy, and system-wide deployment of the Safer Together National Action Plan, showed us what it looks like to answer that call, shifting culture across nearly 100 hospitals, one huddle, one conversation, one near-miss at a time.
About See You Now Podcast
SEE YOU NOW is a podcast that shines a light on the real people changing the status quo in health: from nurses working in labor and delivery, with infectious diseases, and in hospice; to nurse allies in politics, business and tech. Created in collaboration with Johnson & Johnson and the American Nurses Association.
For more information on the podcast bundles, visit ANA's Innovation Website at https://www.nursingworld.org/practice-policy/innovation/education.
Have questions or feedback for the SEE YOU NOW team? Future episode ideas? Contact us at hello@seeyounowpodcast.com.
Resources
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- National Steering Committee for Patient Safety. (2020). Safer Together: A National Action Plan to Advance Patient Safety. Boston, MA: Institute for Healthcare Improvement.
- Integrating the Safer Together National Action Plan to Improve Nurse-Led Models Focused on Patient Safety. PubMed.
- Li, L. Z., Yang, P., Singer, S. J., Pfeffer, J., Mathur, M. B., & Shanafelt, T. (2024). Nurse burnout and patient safety, satisfaction, and quality of care: A systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA Network Open, 7(11), e2443059.
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- Smiley, R. A., Kaminski-Ozturk, N., Reid, M., et al. (2025). The 2024 National Nursing Workforce Survey. Journal of Nursing Regulation, 16(1), S1–S88.
- Pascale, A., George, N., Potter, C., & Warshawsky, N. E. (2025). Alarming rise in nurse assaults: Urgent call for legislation. Nurse Leader, 23(3), 321–327.
- Wolf, L. A., Delao, A. M., & Perhats, C. (2014). Nothing changes, nobody cares: Understanding the experience of emergency nurses physically or verbally assaulted while providing care. Journal of Emergency Nursing, 40(4), 305–310.
- Carson, W., & Bates, M. (2024). Elevating professional well-being in healthcare: A crosswalk of the NIOSH Impact Wellbeing campaign and the ANCC Pathway to Excellence Framework. Nursing Administration Quarterly.
- American Nurses Credentialing Center. (2025). ANCC Well-Being Excellence Credential. NursingWorld.org.
- American Nurses Foundation. (n.d.). Nurse well-being: Building peer and leadership support program. NursingWorld.org.
- American Nurses Association. (n.d.). Healthy Nurse, Healthy Nation.
