Validation of AACN's Healthy Work Environment Assessment Tool

Before you Begin

1. Reflect on the following question: What new knowledge or perspective do you hope to gain from this activity?

2. Review: Implicit Bias and its Impact on Patient Outcomes (License requirement for California)

Description

This American Journal of Critical Care article presents a multisite validation of the AACN Healthy Work Environment Assessment Tool–Team (HWEAT-Team), an updated instrument designed to assess healthy work environments across interprofessional critical care teams. Expanding the original HWEAT from 18 to 24 items and introducing two 6-point Likert scales for agreement and quality, the HWEAT-Team aims to improve sensitivity and interprofessional applicability. Using a descriptive, nonexperimental correlational design, the authors surveyed 733 interprofessional staff from 11 U.S. pediatric cardiac and mixed intensive care units, administering the HWEAT, HWEAT-Team, and AHRQ Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture 2.0, with repeat HWEAT-Team administration to assess test–retest reliability. Direct care nurses rated effective decision-making and meaningful recognition lower than physicians, highlighting role-based differences. Despite limitations related to response rate, role representation, and specialized setting, the study provides the first multisite evidence supporting the HWEAT-Team as a reliable and valid tool for interprofessional work environment assessment.