|
Continued from Page 2
“The point of a Magnet is that you’re just
not going to make it if your only focus is on recruitment
and retention,” Allison said. “You have to
give more than lip service to issues like shared decision-making,
support for professional development, all those leadership
questions.”
The first Magnet-designated hospitals had established
themselves for some time as places where everyone from
the hospital board on down believed nursing was important.
When the University of California, Davis, Medical Center
received its Magnet designation in 1997, “we didn’t
really change anything,” said Wendy Nugent, MSN,
RN, Magnet program coordinator for the medical center.
UC Davis had an all-RN staff, a strong collaborative
relationship between nurses and physicians, a high RN-to-patient
ratio and competitive salaries and benefits. The hospital’s
chief nurse executive, Carol Robinson, MPA, RN, has
always had an open-door policy, and nurses are encouraged
to come to her with concerns, Nugent said. The hospital
offered a high level of patient care and, as a university-affiliated
hospital, had a strong research component. Most important,
staff nurses were happy and enthusiastic, she said.
The University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle
had a similar situation. The medical center was one
of the 41 original Magnet hospitals and was the first
organization to successfully apply for and receive the
official designation under the program established by
the credentialing center, said Catherine Broom, ARNP,
CNS, Magnet project coordinator for the University of
Washington Medical Center. The hospital received its
second redesignation this summer.
Staff nurses were much more involved in the redesignation
process than they had been in the past, Broom said.
Nurses showed their work at poster fairs and submitted
work to a Magnet newsletter. “We saw it as an opportunity
to tell our story of excellence and we involved as many
nurses as we could,” she said.
Wendy Reiner, RN, an ambulatory surgery nurse who has
worked at the University of Washington Medical Center
for 12 years, said she was not aware of her hospital’s
Magnet status and what it meant until about two years
ago, when the hospital began preparing for redesignation.
“Now everybody knows about it and we’re proud
of it and it’s helped us become proud of ourselves
as nurses,” she said. “We knew we were different.
We just didn’t know why.”
Reiner didn’t need an award to tell her she wanted
to work at the University of Washington. “I’ve
worked in a lot of places and this is the only place
I’ve stayed for very long,” she said. She
appreciates the career options and the ability to move
around and learn new things without having to quit her
job. She also likes feeling part of a team with physicians.
“We’re treated like peers and there’s
a lot of cross-communication with the physician,”
she said. “We discuss together what the treatment
method is going to be. We can make recommendations and
not feel intimidated.”
Like Reiner, Leigh Anne Saunders, RN, decided to stay
at University of Washington Medical Center after working
for short periods at a number of other hospitals. “It
was so comfortable here and everyone was so genuinely
nice and helpful and team-playing here,” said Saunders,
who works in the cardio-thoracic surgical step-down
unit. “Everybody’s involved in the care of
the patient. You hear about that at other hospitals,
but I’ve never really seen it until now.”
As the Magnet Recognition Program becomes more widely
known, nurses around the country are applying to hospitals
specifically because of their Magnet designation. Hinshaw,
dean and professor at the University of Michigan (Ann
Arbor) School of Nursing, said a number of nursing schools
now give seniors a pamphlet with a checklist of Magnet-like
characteristics to check off when looking for an employer.
Previous Page
- Next Page
|
Reply
to Article