Magnet designation: What does it mean for me? Essay

Magnet designation â€Å"recognizes health care organizations for quality patient care, nursing excellence and innovations in professional nursing practice.†(AACN, 2014). As a nurse going through this process in one of the facilities I work at, It means mire education and accountability. I only work Per Diem at this facility but have to chair on one of the nursing committees, I have to have a certification in my specialty and also a bachelors degree in 5 years of starting my employment or I am terminated as an employee(yes contract was signed or no employment). This has increased my educational requirements and time requirements for this facility. I am on the employee recognition committee and as an employee that works long hours in an emergency room this committee is actually very important. Many feel that this is the â€Å"party† committee but we are more than that. We recognize the employees that don’t often get recognized for all their hard work. As an employee that rarely gets recognized I realized that this is important to our health and care of the patients. I work hard but as a per diem employee I often get left unrecognized. I have large shoulders and can bear that brunt because I know my nursing care is excellent, my patients are taken care of and if they cant remember my name that is ok. Sometimes its the ones that you butt heads with and they complain from the time they set foot in the door that remember your name-thats ok also because it means that you made an impression on them- sometimes good sometimes not so good. We don’t always recognize the same people over and over we try to disperse the compliments and recognize not just nurses but also ancillary staff as they make up our hospital also. As a committee we celebrate monthly birthdays and try to correlate outings into volunteer fun days. These can be hard to correlate with schedules but we use baseball games for BP checks and fair days for health screenings. It has brought our department and our hospital closer to magnet status. The magnet program has three goals or principles: †¢Promote quality in a setting that supports professional practice †¢Identify excellence in the delivery of nursing services to patients/residents †¢Disseminate best practices in nursing services. This is achieved by increasing employee satisfaction and education through training and education. The benefits of magnet status are that the hospital designated will attract and retain top talent, improve care, safety and satisfaction, foster a collaborative culture and advance nursing standards and practice, and grow business and financial success. Shared governance is a way of incorporating all those goals. on other shared governance teams they look at certain aspects of care that we can improve such as lift teams, rapid response teams, specific equipment to help decrease our fall rates and also employee injuries. These teams are made up of management and floor nurses along with the CNO/CEO/CFO. we all have an input into what needs to be changed and how we are going to change the need. Along with the education that is needed to make that change. I have enjoyed the education that has come with attaining our magnet status. The hospital that I am at does not have JCHAO but we have DNV-Det Norske Veritas. â€Å"DNV works with national healthcare authorities and healthcare providers around the world to effectively manage risk and improve healthcare delivery. Our team of healthcare and risk management specialists has an innovative, advanced approach to help healthcare providers globally in identifying, assessing and managing risk, enhancing patient safety and quality, while ensuring sustainable business practice.†(DNV, 2013) They come yearly and assess our facility, we actually learn from this yearly visit and am not rushing to ‘clean and organize a facility for an upcoming visit from joint commissions’. The DNV has increased patient safety and quality along with helping us get accredited, and reduce infection risk. The DNV is an ISO9001 program and has certified many agencies around the world and is designated as the best in healthcare and proactively manages risks and best practices. Our sister hospital Norfolk General has been redesignated as a Magnet  facility and all but our 1 stand alone facility are heading to magnet status. For me Magnet status is an achievable goal for many facilities and designates the best nursing practice, and higher retention and nursing satisfaction. References: ANCC MAGNET RECOGNITION PROGRAM. (2014, January 1). . Retrieved July 26, 2014, from http://www.nursecredentialing.org/magnet/programoverview DNV:Managing Risk:Healthcare. (2013, January 1). . Retrieved July 25, 2014, from http://www.dnvusa.com/industry/healthcare/