CIC AACN 2026 Needs Assessment Survey Follow Up: HWE
Posted 23 days ago by Melissa Coxey
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CIC AACN 2026 Needs Assessment Survey Follow-Up: HWE
Many of you expressed interest Healthy Work Environment(HWE) in the recent needs assessment survey. We would like to share this information and additional resources about how AACN incorporates it’s 2025-2026 national president’s theme “On Purpose”with promotion of HWE.
Background:
The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) is actively promoting healthy work environments (HWE) through its HWE National Collaborative (launched April 2024), which offers mentorship and evidence-based resources to improve nurse retention and patient safety.
They provide six key standards—skilled communication, true collaboration, effective decision-making, appropriate staffing, meaningful recognition, and authentic leadership which is supported by tools, assessments, and publications to create sustainable, positive, and safe work cultures.
AACN connects a Healthy Work Environment (HWE) to the theme "On Purpose" by moving from passive survival to intentional transformation.
Instead of waiting for culture to improve by chance, the AACN President’s Theme challenges nurses to use the six HWE standards as a deliberate roadmap.
Being "On Purpose" means:
Intentional Leadership: Actively choosing authentic leadership to build trust rather than just managing tasks.
Deliberate Recognition: Using meaningful recognition to intentionally restore the sense of value that burnout strips away.
Proactive Assessment: Utilizing the HWE Assessment Tool to purposefully measure—rather than guess—the health of a unit.
Please see resources below for more information on HWE:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CQOOI6_BDX-/?igsh=dTZ4ZWhzMzl0Y3po
Collective Action: Joining the HWE National Collaborative to intentionally redesign the clinical experience alongside peers
https://www.myamericannurse.com/nurse-burnout/
https://www.aacn.org/nursing-excellence/healthy-work-environments/hwe-resources
https://www.aacn.org/WD/HWE/Content/hwehome.content?menu=hwe
https://www.aacn.org/nursing-excellence/healthy-work-environments/csi-academy-hwe-program
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1557308725002951
https://www.aacn.org/nursing-excellence/healthy-work-environments#assessments