[vintagecarol]

Our Health Center is currently going for Magnet Status. I am on the Steering Commitee-just wondering if anyone could tell me the process that they used to help get the word out to the other nurses in there hospitals to get them on board.
Thanks,
Carol

[-jt]

To get them on board, they first must feel and believe that they are working in a facility that values, respects, and includes them in all aspects of desicion making, that the culture of the facility is such that the importance of nurses is recognized, that they are treated as peers by physicians, other professionals and administration, that nursing leadership is strong in the institution and supportive, that the nurses have opportunity for education, professional autonomy in their practice, and career growth at that facility, and that their facility has made a true committment to nurses and is a positive environment for them to work in. If your facility is really such a place & the nurses really feel and believe it, you wont have any problem finding some who want to help with the application process.

A WORKING MODEL
the story of one of the first Magnet Award winners - The University of Washington Medical Center (UWMC) in Seattle.
see the American Nurses association website -http://nursingworld.org/ajn/2002/feb/issues.htm
and
http://nursingworld.org/ancc/magnet/magnet.htm


see also:

The Rules of Attraction
Hospitals that refine their culture and policies can capture the coveted magnet status, turning their workplaces into RN havens and drawing more staff their way
http://www.nurseweek.com/news/features/02-10/magnet.asp

[Seasoned]

I worked in a Magnet Hospital that has had several years running doing great and currently working in a hospital in their magnet journey, and they are doing poorly.

What the latter facility does not understand is "Magnet" is really a label or award to acknowledge an environment of exceptional nursing practice with exceptional nursing "office politics".

The basis of magnet status is nurses working together officially via the nurse governance process, i.e., nurses helping nurses giving exceptional nursing care as a benefit for patients & their family.

But for retention of exceptional nurses: nurses "supporting" each other is even more crucial! So if your work environment is inundated with nurse-to-nurse hostility, racism, unaddressed management or colleague bullying, constant nurse turnover, more per diem than core staff, or truly no career latter... forget about achieving Magnet Status it will never get off the ground!!!

Nursing Administrators keep their head in the sand believing what their good o'l girl office politics feeds to them: "cover-up". They hold "open forums" supposedly for nurses and nursing staff to vent not accepting that no one will commit political suicide by venting in front of their managers (or their representatives) who will make them pay for their negative comments.

Nurses with double digit years at the same facility are not motivated towards change (rare exceptions to all rules). They are invested in keeping things status quo which they worked so hard to design while they crawl to retirement and coast to their last day at work. The other nurses just leave. Why not? There's a nursing shortage. You can get job satisfaction at another place probably getting more money too!

The requirements for Magnet status starts with the climate of nursing job satisfaction that already exists. If it's bad, terminations need to start from the top (management) down. Nursing administrators need to start with peer review evaluations from the bottom up. That's right, survey the lowest about their surpervisors effectiveness. CLEAN HOUSE for greater job satisfaction for your nurses before you invite folks to put your facility under a microscope.

[tirednursedude]

Shared governance is great in name and concept.In the hospital where i work we are trying to get magnet by the end of the year.Yet when our rep brings up ideas while at meetings with the execs of nursing,she is quashed and has several docs tell her they will boot her off the committee if she says what they dont want to hear.

Magnet is just a scam to pat the big whigs on the back,it does absolutely nothing for the floor nurse.

[blueheaven]

You wrote exactly how I feel about the situation!!!!!!!! They are talking about "getting magnet status" at my hospital. In order to do it, like you said, they need to start and get rid of the dead wood in middle and upper management. There is no sense of personal accountability among staff (freq callouts etc) because middle and upper management has just "let things slide" because they don't want to the paperwork involved in dealing with a problem employee (or supervisor )

I asked the nurse who is going to be the "coordinator" for all this stuff about shared governance and by her answer I could tell she had NO CLUE as to what that was...and this from a PHD nurse. God help us!!!

[DeLana_RN]

My hospital is trying to get magnet status as well... much is already in place, such as shared governance.

Although problems still exist, I have great hopes - one can only hope, right?!

DeLana

P.S. Giving all nurses a nice "out of the ordinary" raise last fall surely was a step in the right direction.