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Marlene Smadu

Marlene Smadu doesn’t mince words when it comes to the importance of quality healthcare work environments.

“It is unacceptable to work in, receive care in, govern, manage and fund unhealthy healthcare workplaces. Period. There is plenty of evidence and there should be no more debate or waffling,” stresses the Associate Dean of the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Nursing and President of the Canadian Nurses Association.

“We all need to say this with conviction, and ensure that there are real consequences when healthcare workplaces are not improved because we know that unhealthy healthcare workplaces lead to lower quality outcomes and poorer care for clients,” says Smadu.

Given her extensive background both researching quality workplaces and implementing her findings in academic and nursing settings, there’s no doubt she speaks from experience.

“I have long held beliefs and implemented practices about quality workplaces, whether working in clinical areas, educational settings, government, or other organizations,” she says.

“People basically go to work to do a good job, and want to be treated with respect and dignity, be valued for their work, experience personal and professional growth, and have some fun.”

Within the educational setting, Smadu strives to support faculty to do the best they can in all aspects of their work, whether teaching or supervising students, conducting research, participating in professional practice, or engaging the community.

She feels faculty thrive in the university environment where professional autonomy, choice, flexibility, self-directness are primary values, and so she highlights and supports these principles in her work with faculty.

She also works closely with student associations and other informal student groups to foster quality workplaces from their perspective by listening to their issues and helping address them.

“Working with undergraduate nursing students gives me an opportunity to understand their unique needs and values in healthcare workplaces, and to help them feel comfortable articulating those needs,” she explains.

Smadu became involved with the Quality Worklife-Quality Healthcare Collaborative (QWQHC) at the invitation of Wayne Strelioff, who once had been the Provincial Auditor in Saskatchewan, and thus known to Smadu. Strelioff had agreed to serve as Chair of the QWQHC.

Involved in research about quality workplaces funded by Health Canada and the Saskatchewan government at the time, Smadu was impressed with Strelioff’s interest in the new Collaborative and the leadership he was willing to provide to it.

“The fact that so many national organizations had agreed to be partners in this Collaborative was also a drawing point -- I felt that they were committed to action,” she recalls. As a result, she not only agreed to sit on the Collaborative’s Steering Committee, but also chair the QWQHC Awareness & Engagement Working Group.

“The weight of the Collaborative, with 10 national partners including the federal government and almost 100 experts in quality workplaces, lent it significant credibility and meant there could be strong momentum to get and keep things going,” she reasons.

Smadu was ideally placed to represent the Canadian Nurses Association (CNA) as a key partner in the Collaborative, since the CNA had in fact been working on quality workplace issues for many years.

“One of the CNA's roles is to gather and create evidence and research and move forward on policy to make change,” explains Smadu. “To that end, the CNA contracted workplace wellness pioneer Graham Lowe to lead some seminal work on quality workplaces and possible indicators, and has worked closely with the Canadian Council on Health Services Accreditation and other organizations to integrate this work into accreditation and other processes.”

Even though the CNA had produced a large number of documents and other resources on quality workplaces, the Association felt its efforts could be strengthened by collaborating with others, and that other organizations and their members would benefit from CNA's significant work in this area.

“The ultimate and common goal for CNA and its partners is to create healthy healthcare workplaces for all providers that support retention and recruitment of providers and high quality healthcare processes and outcomes for the people we serve,” stresses Smadu.

With this in mind, quality healthcare workplaces will continue to be a high priority for the CNA because they result in better outcomes for patients and clients.

Smadu feels that the evidence and identified action plan produced by the Collaborative has put Canada on the right track but that “there is still much work to be done with organizations, institutions and managers to provide tools and implement change. The CNA will continue to lead this change.”

Given Smadu’s track record of passion and success where healthy work environments are concerned, it looks like the Collaborative can count on having a ringer as part of their team for some time to come.

For more information regarding the CNA’s quality worklife efforts, please visit www.cna-nurses.ca and click on the Nursing Practice tab to access Practice Environments and Patient Safety resources.