Magnet Hospitals

[Carrie_MTC]

I'm just wondering how much of a difference it makes to work as a nurse at a "Magnet" institution versus one that's not. I currently work in a "for profit" hospital where I feel the nurses are not appreciated and often have what I consider to be an un-safe number of patients.

[brandy1017, ASN, RN]

It seems like just finding a decent hospital is like a needle in a haystack. Where I work we have adequate staffing ratio's but they have cut back staffing over the years so it is harder, especially when dealing with crazy, confused, violent, or morbidly obese patients and we don't have the extra staff we need for those. But even when staffing is ok, there is such a condescending, micromanaging tone to deal with. All the latest gimmicks or changes from the top down with no feedback from the staff, in most instances, these changes make our life more difficult, are not practical and are more time consuming, but there is no awareness of that by management. It is very frustrating because they simply refuse to listen to us. We are promised lift equipment that never comes, something else comes up for the hospital to spend the money on instead! They supposedly can't or won't afford a computer for each room so we are dealing with broken, dead batteries and no doubt infection issues. Staffing by mandation is the order of the day, simply because its cheaper than hiring staff or contracting with agency or pool! We have so called shared governance but that is a joke because again it is a top down deal where they state what the council will focus on. If the nurses bring up issues on their own they are ignored and only the people management want end up on the council. I wouldn't waste my time banging my head againt the wall on such a council.

[Fribblet]

IT'S A TRAP!

Also

The general rule of thumb is this:

Whatever HR and management tell you about a place, it's actually the opposite.

[KelRN215, BSN, RN]

Chico_DavidRN and brandy1017 hit the nail on the head with everything they just said. You both pretty much describe exactly what it's like in my "magnet" institution.

There is supposed to be "shared governance" at Magnet Institutions but, in reality, my hospital is a dictatorship and trying to convince anyone at the top that they should look at things and consider making changes is basically trying to prove that 1+1=4. The response you get if you bring up anything is to lines of "you're wrong, 1+1 is 2, it's always been 2 and it's always going to be 2." I seriously think I'd get taken more seriously if I called up Pope Benedict and said, "hey Pope, I think you should give Islam a try... seems like a good religion." If it isn't their idea, it doesn't count at this "magnet" institution.

Yesterday I went to a meeting to "discuss" a flawed policy at my institution with several of "them" (management, directors, HR, etc). They pretended to listen to what I was saying, had answers they'd clearly been coached to give and in the end, I was actually told "well we're not going to change the way we do things here." Complete waste of my breath to even try. And so in line with "magnet" qualities.