St John's Medical Center - seeking Magnet status

dottimur · Aug 3, 2006

Go look at http://www.nursingadvocacy.org/faq/magnet.html. The article begins:

What is Magnet status and how's that whole thing going?

Magnet status is an award given by the American Nurses' Credentialing Center (ANCC), an affiliate of the American Nurses Association, to hospitals that satisfy a set of criteria designed to measure the strength and quality of their nursing.

BabyRN2Be · Aug 3, 2006

It would be a good thing if St. John received Magnet status. It would be more attractive to nursing from what I understand. Drats, I had a book about it but it, too, disappeared during the move.

The only other hospital in Oklahoma that has magnet status is Mercy in OKC.

I wonder if St. Francis will apply for this as well? I would be kind of surprised if they weren't seeking magnet status, too. Anyone know?

LanaBanana · Aug 3, 2006

Yeah, I can't imagine St Francis not pursuing it as well, but it seems like maybe would make it less important if they both had it. I've read a lot of mixed opinions about magnet hospitals on the internet so I don't know what to think of it.

oktravelnurse · Aug 7, 2006

As a former employee of St Francis Hospital in Tulsa I will tell you they attempted this about 2 years ago. They hired a bunch of employees and formed a committee that was supposed to work on obtaining this status only and nothing else. This is what I heard happened, they paid the application fee and I'll call them the "magnet people" showed up. One of the first things they told administration is you need to get your nurse/patient ratio #'s down and we don't mean 9 pts to 1 nurse. Then they told administration they were ready to interview some of the employees. Administration handed them a list of employees to go talk to and the magnet people told them, this is not how it works. We decide randomly whom we want to talk to. You don't tell us to interview. Administration refused to let them talk to the employees... (Gee I wonder what that told the magnet committee; maybe we have some unhappy people here?).Magnet people told SFH do not even think about applying or requesting a meeting until you are serious about this. All the employees heard was to be on your toes becaue we are trying for magnet status.

I as well as other employees feel like the magnet committee laughed in their faces. I do know they require approx $5K application fee and then as things progress it goes up. I remember seeing something about 50K. I saw a chart about all of this while I was there. SFH wanted so badly to be the 1st in OK to obtain magnet status, and needless to say it went badly, very badly. I left SF months after they were turned down and we never heard another word about it from management, the CEO, or anyone else. It was like it was swept under the rug!

oktravelnurse · Aug 7, 2006

As a former employee of St Francis Hospital in Tulsa I will tell you they attempted this about 2 years ago. They hired a bunch of employees and formed a committee that was supposed to work on obtaining this status only and nothing else. This is what I heard happened, they paid the application fee and I'll call them the "magnet people" showed up. One of the first things they told administration is you need to get your nurse/patient ratio #'s down and we don't mean 9 pts to 1 nurse. Then they told administration they were ready to interview some of the employees. Administration handed them a list of employees to go talk to and the magnet people told them, this is not how it works. We decide randomly whom we want to talk to. You don't tell us to interview. Administration refused to let them talk to the employees... (Gee I wonder what that told the magnet committee; maybe we have some unhappy people here?). Magnet people told SFH do not even think about applying or requesting a meeting until you are serious about this. :lol2: All the employees heard was to be on your toes becaue we are trying for magnet status.

I as well as other employees feel like the magnet committee laughed in their faces. I do know they require approx $5K application fee and then as things progress it goes up. I remember seeing something about 50K. I saw a chart about all of this while I was there. SFH wanted so badly to be the 1st in OK to obtain magnet status, and needless to say it went badly, very badly. I left SF months after they were turned down and we never heard another word about it from management, the CEO, or anyone else. It was like it was swept under the rug! :uhoh3:

LanaBanana · Aug 7, 2006

Wow. I had always heard good things about SFH until I started into the nursing field and now I'm hearing some not so good things - not as bad as other hospitals though. Sounds pretty embarrasing for the bigshots though! Does magnet status mean any more or better benefits for the nurses?

Quadlock · Aug 9, 2006

I think that you will find, All hospitals have positive and negative things to overcome. Having worked at both SFH and SJMC, I can say that they are very different, and both need improvement. Each hospital does a few things exceptionally well. SFH has one of the best ICU's I have come across. They handle VERY ill patients and take many unstable patients from the ER. I can remember the ER staff crashing through the doors and saying,"This one is about to crash." Good times. The SJMC ER takes the same accuity of critical pt, but the ICU staff will many times not take patients if they are very unstable. The pt is treated in the ER until stable and then transported.

All of that to say, the ER at SJMC is probably a better ER facility. I know that the ICU at SFH is a better facility. SFH has a stellar pediatric group, SJMC has their stellar things as well. They also both have areas that need vast improvement. You may find this to be true at most places. The key is to do your part in changing the poor performance into something stellar.

LanaBanana · Aug 9, 2006

Excellently put Quadlock. My nephew was born 6 wks premature at SFH and spent several weeks in the NICU and I couldn't have been more impressed with it. But I have had ER trips to both and SJMC seems to beat SFH hands down - I was once told it would be 9 hours before being seen! (In 9 hours I was expected to be back there doing my phlebotomy internship!)

Looks like you're new to the boards, so WELCOME! Nice to have another Okie.

babynurselsa, RN · Aug 9, 2006

I think there has been a decline in the level of care at sjmc though. There has been a bit of "turmoil" there over the last several months.

It definitely would be interesting so see how teh whole magnet process goes though.

I agree that both are overall quality facilities, each excelling in different areas.

I have worked both facilities over the years. I know where I would go for what.

BabyRN2Be · Aug 9, 2006

Quadlock,

First of all, welcome to the Oklahoma board and allnurses.com. Glad to have you. :welcome:

I absolutely agree with you that the EOPC at SFH is first rate. For those who don't know, EOPC is Eastern Oklahoma Perinatal Center, aka NICU at SFH. Although I hope to work at another hospital when I start out, eventually I would love to work SFH's EOPC. They have top rate and absolutely state of the art equipment. They are the only hospital in Tulsa to have ECMO, which is a neonatal heart-lung bypass machine, essentially. Very, very complicated and I might I say intimidating equipment, but it saves lives.

My dad was in the Coronary Care Unit (not sure what they are really called), and they were really, really good.

However, the billing dept at SFH is a mess. We have been double billed many times, it was a MESS.

I don't think I'd want to start out at SFH, but would eventually like to end up there.