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.

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. 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.

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

Safer Together Series

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.

Resources

1. The Foundational Workforce-Safety

Lucian Leape Institute. (2013). Through the Eyes of the Workforce: Creating Joy, Meaning, and Safer Health Care. Boston: National Patient Safety Foundation. https://www.ihi.org/library/publications/through-eyes-workforce-creating-joy-meaning-and-safer-health-care

Gandhi, T. K., Kaplan, G. S., Leape, L., et al. (2018). Transforming concepts in patient safety: A progress report. BMJ Quality & Safety, 27(12), 1019–1026. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs-2018-008768 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6288701/

2. The Safer Together National Action Plan

National Steering Committee for Patient Safety. (2020). Safer Together: A National Action Plan to Advance Patient Safety. Boston, MA: Institute for Healthcare Improvement. https://www.ihi.org/partner/initiatives/national-steering-committee-patient-safety/national-action-plan-advance-patient-safety

Integrating the Safer Together National Action Plan to Improve Nurse-Led Models Focused on Patient Safety. PubMed. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40876046/

3. Nurse Burnout and Patient Safety

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. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.43059

Getie, A., Ayenew, T., Amlak, B. T., Gedfew, M., Edmealem, A., & Kebede, W. M. (2025). Global prevalence and contributing factors of nurse burnout: An umbrella review of systematic reviews and meta-analyses. BMC Nursing, 24(1), 596. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-025-03266-8

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. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2155-8256(25)00047-X

4. Workplace Violence Against Nurses

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. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mnl.2024.12.012

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. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jen.2013.11.006

5. ANCC Well-Being Excellence Credential

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. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11373476/

American Nurses Credentialing Center. (2025). ANCC Well-Being Excellence Credential. NursingWorld.org. https://www.nursingworld.org/organizational-programs/well-being-excellence

6. Nurse Well-Being: Building Peer and Leadership Support Program

American Nurses Foundation. (n.d.). Nurse well-being: Building peer and leadership support program. NursingWorld.org. https://www.nursingworld.org/foundation/programs/nurse-wellbeing/

7. Healthy Nurse, Healthy Nation

American Nurses Association. (n.d.). Healthy Nurse, Healthy Nation. https://www.healthynursehealthynation.org/