Samueli Institute Endorsement

The Samueli Institute, a world-renowned, not-for-profit medical research organization, dedicated to the scientific exploration of healing, is supporting the Nightingale Declaration Campaign.

Wayne Jonas, MD, President and CEO, Samueli Institute

Nurses, in their role as patient advocates, are experts on the shortcomings of a cure-focused health care system and are natural innovators as a result. As the predominant workforce in our hospitals and communities, they continue to have a tremendous influence on quality of life issues that affect patients and families, on workplace wellness strategies and on other health promoting activities.”

The Institute is one of an elite group of organizations in the USA with a track record in both complementary and integrative medicine, healing relationships and military research. It  is involved in many projects in the USA, Europe and Asia.

Wayne B. Jonas, MD, President and CEO of the Samueli Institute, is a longstanding advocate for a model of health care delivery that incorporates both healing and curing approaches.

A widely published scientific investigator, Dr. Jonas is a practicing family physician, and an associate professor at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.  Dr. Jonas was the director of the Office of Alternative Medicine at the National Institutes of Health from 1995 to 1998, and prior to that he served as the director of the Medical Research Fellowship at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians.

Says Dr. Jonas: “Nurses, in their role as patient advocates, are experts on the shortcomings of a cure-focused health care system and are natural innovators as a result. As the predominant workforce in our hospitals and communities, they continue to have a tremendous influence on quality of life issues that affect patients and families, on workplace wellness strategies and on other health promoting activities.”

To support ongoing innovation in the area of optimal healing environments, the Samueli Institute launched the Optimum Healing Environment Program (OHE) to determine how theory about healing translates into real world practice.

Dr. Jonas explains: “We are collaborating with health care systems to study the impact that optimal healing environments may have on improving quality of care and safety for patients, increasing patient satisfaction with their health experiences and recruiting and retaining health professionals, especially nurses.”

Barb Findlay, RN, Vice President of OHESM, Samueli Institute

“Across America and internationally, we meet nurses in the course of our research who are serving as champions for creating optimal healing environments where they work, teach and lead.”

Barb Findlay, RN and Vice President of OHE at Institute recognizes the key role nurses play as catalysts for transforming health care.

In a statement of support for the NIGH initiative she notes: “Across America and internationally, we meet nurses in the course of our research who are serving as champions for creating optimal healing environments where they work, teach and lead.” 

She adds: “The Institute’s aim is to articulate a complete framework of actionable practices and evaluation methods that , if implemented, would lead to more cost-effective, efficient organizations in which the environment facilitates healing and where nurses are fully supported to reconnect to the mission at their professional roots – the mission of caring”.

Barb Findlay formerly served as Coordinator for Clinical Research and Professional Practice, and then Executive Director at the Tzu Chi Institute for Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Vancouver, British Columbia.  She held a senior leadership position with the BC NurseLine, a BC Ministry of Health telenursing initiative.

Her background includes more than twenty years as a staff nurse in a variety of settings, including inner-city emergency rooms, and as an educator for patients and health professionals in a community hospital setting.

For more information, go to: http://www.siib.org