How Focusing on Staff Emotional Well-being Can Help You Achieve Quality - Safety Goals - Staff Mental Health/Wellbeing Action Plan Implementation

Sep 11, 2026

Uploaded by Angel

Guidance on improving staff mental health and wellbeing to advance organizational quality and safety goals, grounded in a Staff Mental Health/Wellbeing Action Plan Template. It outlines pandemic-driven challenges including burnout, staffing shortages, and frontline fatigue sources such as long shifts, PPE strain, poor sleep, grief, guilt, and family caregiving demands. The session highlights resilience-building strategies for long-term care facilities and shows how strengths developed during COVID can be leveraged for sustained reform, funding, and workforce protection.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryPresentations

FormatPDF

Pages29

Reading Time10 min

AccessFree to download

Today’s Objectives

HQIN’s Staff Mental Health/Wellbeing Action Plan Template

Strategies for Long-Term Care Facilities

The Perfect Storm: COVID

Emotional defenses challenged and burnout increased

Staffing shortages and reform calls

Sources of Fatigue in Frontline Staff

Physical demands and PPE/pandemic fatigue

Emotional strain: guilt, grief, and responsibility

Strengthened During the Pandemic

Skills, trust-building, and facility leadership

Acknowledging the Stress, Loss and Grief

How Focusing on Staff Emotional Well-being Can Help You Achieve Quality & Safety Goals June 16, 2022 Today’s Speakers Dana Schmitz, MS, BS Quality Improvement Advisor Sibyl Goodwin, BSN, RN, DNS-CT Quality Improvement Advisor 2 Health Quality Innovation Network 3 Today’s Objectives • Review HQIN’s Staff Mental Health/Wellbeing Action Plan Template and learn implementation strategies . • Understand strategies that long-term care facilities can apply to improve staff mental health and well-being. • Identify how improving staff resilience can help meet the quality and safety goals of your organization . 4 The Perfect Storm: COVID • Emotional defenses of nursing home staff were challenged by the pandemic, pushing team members to their limits, both professionally and personally. • Burnout is at an all-time high in healthcare . • Staffing shortages, present pre-pandemic but exacerbated by the pandemic and beyond. Surgeon General advisory on health worker burnout: Health Worker Burnout – Current Priorities of the U. S. Surgeon General | HHS 5 The Perfect Storm: COVID • Projected shortage of 3 million essential healthcare workers by 2027. • Caregiver burnout during the pandemic is a contributing factor . • Administration focusing on ways to protect health care workers’ mental well-being. • A call from LTC industry for meaningful reform and funding. • National Committee releases report on recommendations to improve nursing home care . Harris, surgeon general warn of health care worker burnout | AP News New Surgeon General Advisory Sounds Alarm on Health Worker Burnout and Resignation | HHS ICYMI: Workforce Shortages In Long Term Care Facilities Continue To Worsen | AHCA NCAL The National Imperative to Improve Nursing Home Quality | National Academies 6 Since the Start of the Pandemic Nursing Homes Have Lost 241,000 Employees (15.2% of its total workforce) BLS March 2022 Jobs Report | AHCA NCAL 7 Sources of Fatigue in Frontline Staff • Long shifts • Care for many acute residents • Responsibility for keen observation skills • PPE fatigue • Pandemic fatigue • Standing and walking for many hours and heavy lifting of residents • Poor sleep quality • Caring for residents, then going home to care for family • Guilt when calling out sick • Grief with loss of a resident 8 Strengthened During the Pandemic • Expertise developed: − Tech support for virtual visits − Intense attention on PPE − Heightened awareness of signs and symptoms − Surrogate for family during isolation − Trust builder − Innovator − Facility champion 9 Acknowledging the Stress, Loss and Grief “The expectation that we can be immersed in suffering and loss daily and not be touched by it, is as unrealistic as expecting to be able to walk through water without getting wet.” -Rachel Naomi Remen Rachel Naomi Remen is an author about and teacher of alternative medicine in the form of integrative medicine. She is a professor atthe Osher Center of Integrative Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. 10

FAQs

What are the document’s main objectives?

It reviews HQIN’s Staff Mental Health/Wellbeing Action Plan Template and implementation strategies, explains long-term care facility strategies to improve wellbeing, and shows how resilience supports organizational quality and safety goals.

How has COVID affected staff emotional wellbeing and performance?

The pandemic challenged nursing home staff emotional defenses, increased burnout to record levels, and worsened staffing shortages, contributing to healthcare worker strain.

What sources of fatigue are listed for frontline staff?

Long shifts, caring for many acute residents, PPE and pandemic fatigue, poor sleep, physical demands, poor rest due to family caregiving, guilt when calling out sick, and grief after resident loss are cited.

Sep 11, 2026

Uploaded by Angel