Creating safe and healing environments: Innovative curriculum to support team members during patient and family escalations in a quaternary care pediatric hospital

Workplace violence in healthcare settings is at a crisis point. Healthcare organization have almost as many serious injuries from violence then all other industries combined (OSHA, 2013; Phillips, 2016). The costs of workplace violence have reached a crescendo provoking a response from several leading healthcare organizations including the Center for Disease Control, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, American Organization of Nurse Executives, American Nurse Association, and the Joint Commission who have all prioritized workplace violence initiatives. To address the issues of workplace violence our hospital embarked on a systematic change to improve the physical and psychological safety of faculty and team members. A multidisciplinary curriculum team developed the Creating Safe and Healing Environment course that introduces concepts to honor the unique demand on team members as they manage the intricacies of caring for others in a hospital setting. The team revisited the complex nature of the relationships and partnerships that are formed in healthcare between the team member, patients and families. The focus of this paper is to discuss the complex issue of workplace violence and review the development of curriculum that focuses the complexities of caring for pediatric patients, introduce the concepts of healing environments and teaches the skills and knowledge needed to co-create safe and healing environments for both care providers and their patients. This paper will also highlight the how a curriculum of this type is informed by the expertise of nursing theories including revisiting Nightengale ideals and incorporating Jean Watson's "Philosophy and Science of Human Caring".