Magnet Hospitals

Magnet status is good for your hospital 'cause it shows the community that your RN's are dedicated to providing excellence in care, education, collegiality with other specialties and that nursing is a vital part of everything that goes on in your hospital. I have to tell you there is a LOT of paperwork involved. It's a long process, but once you have the paperwork approved and the appointment for the on-site survey it goes easier than a JCAHO survey. After all they are looking for the good, not your mistakes. They are looking for RN driven research, performance improvement and the like.

LAME!!!! Totally lame! The amount of money hospitals spend and the energy they waste is unbelievable. Magnet clearly doesn't look at safe staffing issues. If they did our Magnet status never would have been granted let alone renewed. It is a nice little way to make the public think all is hunky dorey in the hospitals. It is a game of dot your i's and cross your t's. It has no impact on quality care or staffing at all. Research is all well and good but if you aren't going to act on the results of that research then why waste the time and money doing the research? Also Magnet isn't cheap. I don't know the actual cost but I do know they had several people who were basically doing a full time job of dotting i's and crossing t's. I have no doubt this money could have been put to much better use.

The only benefit I can see is that the hospital can lose Magnet if they are found guilty of unfair labor practices and I would also assume if there was a strike in a unionized Magnet facility that may jeapordize the designation as well. Just assumptios, not sure about it.

In summary, I would look for employment in a hospital that treats its' staff well. Magnet doesn't guarantee anything remotely close to fair treatment. Wouldn't lure me or anyone I know at a staff level into a job.

My hospital is also supposedly looking into magnet status. However, the comments from fedupnurse are instructive. When I heard that my hospital was considering pursuing this, I had to keep from gagging! I agree with you, fedupnurse---why do any research on nursing issues if the results aren't going to be seriously analyzed and implemented? Our hospital recently did an employee survey. I'm dying to hear the results (and the positive spin that administration will try to put on it! . However, since my manager was recently asked to resign, finding out info will be really challenging (just as it was when he was there! :roll)

Laurie