magnet hospitals?

I work in an LTAC (long term acute care) not sure if that counts as a magnet hospital. The one I work is composed of one of the floors in a very large hospital, its basically a hospital with in a hospital, we are in no way affiliated with the big hospital our unit is in, they just rent us the space/lab services/dietary etc.

We take care of patients that are too acute or infectious to be on a med surg floor yet not sick enough to be in the ICU, no were not considered a stepdown but we have telemetry, hang various cardiac drips etc. and also usually have a good staffing ratio, when I first hired on it was 1:6 for a RN/LPN/CNA team, now its more like 1:8 for the same team, either way I usually have at least 4-5 hours of downtime a night.

A lot of nurses are turned off on working an LTAC because of the words long term, they don't understand that this defnately not a nursing home, most of our staff comes from agency. What ends up happening is an agency nurse will come work a shift with us, discover that it is really a great unit with sane staff rations and then they eventually hire on :)

have a couple articles you can read. I do NOT work at a magnet status hospital, so no personal experience to share. But hope these help:

http://www.nurse.com/NurseContent/Community/NurseCommentary/MagnetStatus.htm

http://www.nurseweek.com/features/00-05/magnet.html

http://www.midhosp.org/magnet/

I worked at the university of Washington when I was a new grad. It has won the magnet award I think 3 times now. They have a patient to nurse ratio of 4-1 on all med surg floors. They involve nurses in a lot of decision making, and I thought it was a way better hospital than the one I work in now, which hasn't won that award. I switched because I didn't like the commute. It is good to work in a teaching hospital when you are first in nursing because the whole environment is set up for learning. I remember many times I would ask a resident a question, and they would be really happy to answer it complete with diagrams. It also felt good as a new grad to be able to teach the residents some things too. I highly recomend a magnet hospital.

I have worked at two magnet hospitals and one that was trying to become magnet. Personally I see no difference. Ratios are still high and morale is still low. Maybe it's just me.

I work at a magnet hospital. We are about to try to get it for the second time in 2004.

I have noticed a little better morale, they have more committees for the nurses to have a sayso in how things are done, patient ratios have improved slightly in some areas, and they are allowing more techs to help.

Retention and recruitment is still an issue as nurses are not satisfied with the pay hospitals in this area are paying and are doing more agency and contract work.

So compared to when I started to prior to being a magnet hospital to now, things are a "little" better. Of course, the job description is the same old stressful job.

But if I wanted two jobs equally and couldn't decide and one was a magnet hospital, I would definately pick the magnet hospital. All other things being equal.

As I said initially, I am not yet a nurse. After graduation, we will probably be relocating to Washington state though. If we do, I will probably try to work at University of Washington medical center. Thanks for your input.

I agree 100 percent. Magnet means nothing. It means the hospital can afford to have administration spend hours fluffing up deceitful paperwork to gain a bought status.

:yeahthat: Couldn't have said it any better!!!!!!!