Hospitals should be exemplars of healthy workplaces.
As major employers and flagship health care organisations, hospitals can influence the norms of the communities they serve by adopting model policies and practices that promote the health of patients, visitors, employees, students and trainees. Hospitals must become healthy workplaces in every sense and extend their role to focus on health and wellness, not just illness. Reorienting hospital policies can: ensure the provision and stewardship of healthy, ecologically sound and sustainable environments; increase the focus on promoting health and prevention; foster interpersonal safety; and improve workplace safety. Such efforts deliver improvements in health outcomes and savings in hospital budgets.
Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute, Canberra, ACT, Australia. lesley.russell@anu.edu.au.
Lesley M
LM
Russell
Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, Perth, WA, Australia.
Matthew H R
MH
Anstey
University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.
Susan
S
Wells
D058445:Bullying; D006293:Health Promotion; D006761:Hospitals / Q000592:standards*; D060051:Occupational Injuries / Q000517:prevention & control; D017132:Workplace / Q000592:standards*; D064450:Workplace Violence / Q000517:prevention & control