Mealer, Moss Receive AACN Award for Efforts to Reduce Burnout Among Critical Care Clinicians

The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) will present Marc Moss, MD and Meredith Mealer, PhD, RN with its AACN Pioneering Spirit Award.

This AACN Visionary Leader Award recognizes significant contributions that influence high-acuity and critical care nursing and relate to the association’s mission, vision and values. The presentation will occur during the 2021 National Teaching Institute & Critical Care Exposition (NTI), held virtually May 24-27.

Mealer and Moss are clinicians and researchers at the University of Colorado School of Medicine at CU’s Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora. A pulmonologist and head of the Division of Pulmonary Sciences and Critical Care Medicine, Moss is the Roger S. Mitchell Professor of Medicine, and Mealer is a psychiatric nurse practitioner and associate professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation.

They receive the AACN award in recognition of their collaborative work over the past 20 years to improve the mental health of healthcare workers, especially nurses.

“Drs. Moss and Mealer were among the first to identify the significant impact of stressful clinical work environments and develop evidence-based initiatives to strengthen nurses’ resilience and prevent burnout syndrome,” said AACN President Elizabeth Bridges. “Their research led to a proactive approach to supporting nurses’ mental health.”

Their work evolved from researching the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among survivors of acute respiratory distress syndrome, a 2002 study Moss led at Emory University in Atlanta with Mealer as a research coordinator. It has since yielded several studies examining the prevalence of PTSD, as well as anxiety, depression and burnout syndrome, among critical care nurses.

Their ongoing research program aims to increase the resilience of individual nurses to benefit the nurse and, by extension, patients, hospitals and the healthcare system. Beyond their focus on interventions to improve individual resiliency and coping skills, Moss and Mealer have developed pilot programs and hospital initiatives to address organizational barriers to promoting improvements in clinicians’ mental health.

Among his many publications, Moss served as first author for “An Official Critical Care Societies Collaborative (CCSC) Statement: Burnout Syndrome in Critical Care Health Care Professionals: A Call for Action,” co-published in the four CCSC member journals in 2016. The report was followed by a 2017 national CCSC summit on Prevention and Management of Burnout in the ICU, bringing together experts from a variety of fields to address burnout.

In 2019, Mealer published “Coping with Caring,” a book that provides an in-depth exploration of resilience in nursing and how resilience interventions may help mitigate symptoms of psychological distress for nurses working in the acute care environment.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Mealer also developed the Narrative Expressive Writing program to help critical care nurses and other frontline clinicians cope with the increased anxiety, depression and trauma. The five-week online guided writing program offers a way for them to process their experiences and emotions anonymously, with feedback from trained mental health professionals. The program is supported by the Well-Being Initiative, a joint effort of the American Nurses Foundation in partnership with AACN and other leading nursing organizations.

Mealer started her career as a critical care nurse at hospitals in North Carolina and Georgia before moving into clinical research at Emory University. She earned her graduate and doctoral degrees in nursing at CU and also holds a post-graduate certificate as a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner.  

Moss is a past president of the American Thoracic Society. He is a graduate of Amherst College in Massachusetts and earned his medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

About the AACN Pioneering Spirit Award: The annual AACN Pioneering Spirit Award recognizes significant contributions that influence acute and critical care nursing regionally and nationally, and relate to AACN’s mission, vision and values. Recipients of this Visionary Leadership Award come from business, academia and healthcare, and receive a plaque and $1,000 honorarium at the National Teaching Institute & Critical Care Exposition. Other Visionary Leadership awards, AACN’s highest honor, include the Lifetime Membership Award and the Marguerite Rodgers Kinney Award for a Distinguished Career.

About the National Teaching Institute & Critical Care Exposition: Established in 1974, AACN’s National Teaching Institute & Critical Care Exposition (NTI) represents the world’s largest educational conference and trade show for nurses who care for acutely and critically ill patients and their families. Bedside nurses, nurse educators, nurse managers, clinical nurse specialists and nurse practitioners attend NTI.

About the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses: For more than 50 years, the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) has been dedicated to acute and critical care nursing excellence. The organization’s vision is to create a healthcare system driven by the needs of patients and their families in which acute and critical care nurses make their optimal contribution. AACN is the world’s largest specialty nursing organization, with more than 130,000 members and over 200 chapters in the United States.

American Association of Critical-Care Nurses, 27071 Aliso Creek Road, Aliso Viejo, CA 92656; 949-362-2000; www.aacn.org; facebook.com/aacnface; twitter.com/aacnme