What Does It Mean to Be a Magnet Hospital

Nurses Ponder the Significance of the Nation's Most Coveted Nursing Award

Martha Conlon

Sitting among boyfriend newcomers on her first day of orientation, Leonie Farrington listened in confusion while a veteran nurse explained that her new employer, The Johns Hopkins Hospital, was a Magnet nursing institution. "I had never heard of Magnet before," recalls Farrington, who'd worked as a nurse in her native Ireland, and afterward in Canada, for the past 12 years. "But I knew it was something wonderful, considering everyone seemed to be incredibly proud."

Stories like Farrington's aren't uncommon. Despite a nationally growing emphasis on achieving and maintaining Magnet status, there are still many nurses— whether considering of age or didactics—who remain unfamiliar with what the term ways. "I know the hospital's inverse over time, only I don't know how," says new labor and delivery nurse Michelle Frances, who, two years into her first nursing task, is still learning the significance of Magnet condition. "I think the older, more experienced nurses should talk about what things were similar before we became Magnet. What's inverse? What's different? Sometimes if you lot know what exactly it is yous appreciate, you capeesh it that much more."

For Farrington, Magnet remained a mystery until last year, when her nurse manager asked that she represent her unit on the Magnet Ambassador Commission— a team of 77 nurses, 1 per unit of measurement, charged with educating their coworkers nearly maintaining the Hospital'southward Magnet status. "One time I learned more about it, I saw that it was a really special thing," Farrington says. "I was honored that people would think I should be a part of that."

Awarded by the American Nurses Credentialing Centre, Magnet designation showtime entered the health care scene in 1990 as a means of recognizing hospitals that offer excellent nursing care. Since then, only 258 of the nation'south 7,569 hospitals accept received the laurels, and only ane in Maryland—The Johns Hopkins Hospital, which practical for and received the designation in 2003. This year, the Hospital's Magnet status is up for review.

"Nursing has always had a stiff presence at Hopkins," says Magnet ambassador Martha Conlon, an NC-Three in the Wilmer Center Intendance Pavilion. "Receiving Magnet designation actually proves that the nursing care hither is above and across."

Nurses whose careers are simply beginning at Hopkins have a shorter point of reference when information technology comes to appreciating the value of working at a Magnet infirmary. Veteran nurses, however, have firsthand cognition.

Twenty or 30 years ago, "there wasn't as much interaction between nurses," says Martha Conlon, a 28-year nurse and NC-Iii in the Wilmer Eye Care Pavilion. "Today, nurses really take much more than responsibility for themselves. We develop our own standards and policies, have more interaction with other departments and focus more on furthering our education."

The starkest difference between past and present-solar day nursing exists in the care environs. Back then, Conlon says, nurses sometimes had more than a dozen patients in their care and, every bit a issue, their duties were much dissimilar.  Nurses were often more job-oriented and focused on nuts like assisting patients with bathing and changing bandages. Because no i returned home with their sutures still in, patients stayed in the hospital longer, and there was little coordination between inpatient and outpatient practices.  And while such interactions immune nurses to build potent relationships with patients, they besides prevented nurses from taking on the academic and leadership-oriented roles that are and so prized at Hopkins.

"I've definitely seen the other side of the debate, and information technology's very different," explains Farrington, whose nursing experience in Ireland offers a vivid case of a nurse's role in a non-Magnet institution. "I think if you showtime out at Hopkins, it's probably easy to believe that nursing is the same everywhere," she says. "But it'southward not, it's truly non."

In Ireland, where Magnet rankings don't exist, she says, nurses have less authorization and autonomy over their practices. Their opinions carry piddling weight with physicians, research opportunities are deficient, salaries are lower and nurses are often viewed equally non-influential, matronly figures—hardly the integral part they play at Hopkins.

"Back home you could go for years and never have the opportunities you have at Hopkins," Farrington says. "For me, it's very exciting to constantly be told, you tin can do all of these things."

The situations that Farrington remembers from her years in Republic of ireland are similar for nurses in not-Magnet U.S. hospitals. Conlon, for example, describes the chore of a colleague she knows who doesn't piece of work at Hopkins: "She's a nurse manager, and she has to do everything. She's auditing charts, doing evaluations, managing the finances. One person can't possibly do all that work and still maintain her patient practice."

Now that she's accepted to working in a Magnet infirmary, Farrington can't imagine going anywhere else. "I came hither and found a totally unlike nursing environment," she says. "I don't think I could ever go dorsum."

The reasons are all Magnetic.

There are 14 "Forces of Magnetism," requirements that an institution must meet to be considered for the honor. Among them are stiff leadership, supportive direction, promoting nurses as educators and providing opportunities for professional development—all a prevalent function of Hopkins nursing civilization. With an all-encompassing list of hospital-sponsored classes, besides as a tuition reimbursement program, Hopkins nurses receive numerous opportunities to extend their educational activity and receive promotions. They likewise take role in research and serve on important committees. And, well-nigh importantly, their opinions matter to the rest of the care team.

"If yous've never worked anywhere else, you might think, Isn't every place like this?" says Lisa Phifer, Pediatrics' director of nursing, "And the respond is no. No, no, no, no. There are only well-nigh 250 hospitals in the country similar this."

The ANCC doesn't merely hand out Magnet designations to institutions based on reputation alone, nor is the title bestowed without considerable effort fabricated past the institution in question. Hospitals must take the initiative upon themselves, and the process tin take a full year or longer. Furthermore, earning Magnet condition once is no life-time guarantee. Some institutions have found themselves stripped of their Magnet championship upon re-evaluation, which is required every 4 years.

When the ANCC kickoff announced the new credentialing arrangement in 1990, Hopkins' nursing department leadership idea petty of it. "We decided we didn't need that level of designation," says Phifer. "We felt like we already met the criteria and didn't accept anything to prove."

Over fourth dimension, though, a question kept arising among job applicants and competing hospitals: Why wasn't Hopkins a Magnet nursing organisation? Nursing students and veterans alike were beginning to expect at Magnet designation as a must-take for their employers, and a growing—albeit yet small— number of hospitals across the country were seeking and receiving the title. So in 2003, Phifer says, Hopkins decided to do the same.

"The opportunity to validate that nosotros did indeed meet Magnet nursing standards was a wonderful journey," Phifer recalls. "We looked at every single standard and said, Yes, we practise that. And we could give specific examples." Unlike some institutions that need two or three attempts before they make the cut, Hopkins was granted Magnet status on its first try. Now, Phifer says, the task is to go on it.

While administrators assemble the thousands of pages of paperwork needed for the re-designation application, Magnet ambassadors are holding monthly meetings with co-workers to build enthusiasm and talk near how to gear up their units for the inevitable site visit—when a Magnet investigator comes to the Hospital to conduct an inspection. Phifer has no doubt that their difficult work will one time again pay off.

"Our staff nurses polish, they just shine," Phifer says. "Part of the beauty of our receiving Magnet condition the get-go fourth dimension was that we didn't take to practise or change anything to achieve it. Information technology's part of who we are—Hopkins nursing equals Magnet nursing."

Magnetic Practices

Magnet designation commencement emerged in 1990 as a way to recognize hospitals that suc-cessfully attracted and re-tained loftier-quality nurses, fifty-fifty during periods of nurs-ing shortages. At Hopkins, a quick read of the Depart-ment of Nursing's 2006 R.N. satisfaction survey shows why the Infirmary measures up.

Called the National Data-base of Nursing Quality In-dicators, the survey polls more than 76,000 nurses across the country to deter-mine their overall job satis-faction, monitor their progress through the years, and evaluate how individual institutions compare to their competitors. With the pre-dicted shortfall in nurses, it's an important question, par-ticularly for whatsoever infirmary hoping to amend its re-cruitment. Fortunately, Hop-kins made a skilful showing— receiving high scores that fared above the national av-erages in most categories.

At Hopkins—where i,612 nurses and 71 units partici-pated—nurses registered a higher level of satisfaction with their professional devel-opment opportunities, co-worker interactions, deci-sion-making abilities and physician relationships. Hop-kins' nurses also showed in-creased satisfaction with co-worker teamwork, chore satis-faction and leadership be-tween 2005 and 2006.

"This is 1 of the nigh of import assessment tools we accept," says Nursing Vice President Karen Haller. "Information technology's so gratifying to meet that we didn't accept any low scores, and in many areas nosotros saw improvement."

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Source: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/nursing/about/magnet.html