Centra's Magnet DesignationClick here to watch the Magnet video - Why Become Magnet?Centra Health nurse Pam McDaniel has no doubt she would look for a Magnet hospital if she were changing jobs or seeking care for a family member.
“In a Magnet hospital,” said McDaniel, an R.N. III, “the focus is on the patient, and the nurses closest to the patient’s care have a strong voice in how care is delivered. Our patients benefit.”
Centra Health nurses like McDaniel always knew they worked in one of the nation’s elite nursing programs. Yet, in achieving Magnet status, nurses not only gained tangible recognition as a top nursing program in the country, but they also started a journey of continuous development.
The result: enhanced patient care and satisfaction, nursing achievement and quality health care for the central Virginia community.
“Magnet speaks to our commitment to excellence in nursing, said George Dawson, Centra Heath president and CEO. “It is great to have this national recognition and to earn this country’s highest honor in nursing. Magnet helps us attract new nurses and doctors, and is a sign to our patients that we are dedicated professionals caring for them.”
“This recognition says a great deal about the excellence and consistency of the health care we all find in central Virginia,” said Rodger W. Fauber, chairman of the Centra Health Board of Directors. “As a community, we all can appreciate what a blessing it is to have a great health care system.”
Centra Health earned Magnet certification in 2005, and recently celebrated its first anniversary of achieving Magnet. Only 203 of the 5,700 hospitals in the country have earned Magnet status from The American Nurses Credentialing Center, an affiliate of the American Nurses Association.
Compared with national averages, patients in Magnet hospitals have lower mortality rates and shorter lengths of stay. They receive more bedside time from their nurses, and also record higher levels of patient satisfaction.
“Nurses recognize that Magnet programs are excellent places to work,” said Carolyn Jacques, Centra Health vice president. “That helps us attract and retain the best nurses available.”
About Magnet
Click here to watch the Magnet video - Why Become Magnet?
The Magnet program was born from a nationwide nursing shortage in the early 1980s. The American Nurses Credentialing Center noticed that there was a small group of hospitals – about 40 – that didn’t appear to have any trouble retaining or recruiting nurses. The organization set out to find out why.
The resulting study identified 14 ways that these exceptional nursing programs developed and sustained their staffs and patient care. These ways were called “Forces of Magnetism” (see box at right) and the health care organizations were called “magnets” because they attracted and kept good nurses.And as a result, high quality nurses help health care organizations attract outstanding physicians.
“Magnet recognition is one thing I found very appealing and very impressive about coming to Centra Health,” said Patti McCue, R.N., M.S.N., C.N.A.A., Centra Health’s new chief nursing officer and senior vice president for patient care services. “Magnet is real. There has to be hard concrete evidence that you deserve that recognition. Magnet says a lot about the commitment of the entire organization to nursing and patient care.
“You cannot achieve Magnet unless you have that critical level of support and commitment from senior administrators, however, this award comes from the work that the bedside nurses do and that’s what makes Magnet so impressive.”
Centra Health’s leaders recognized that their nursing program was already demonstrating many of the Forces of Magnetism. For example, Centra Health has been data-driven for years – measuring, monitoring and improving countless procedures. Centra Health nursing provided support for research and professional development, and communication was strong among departments and between nurses and other professionals.
In working through the rigorous application process, Centra Health nurses could see what they were doing well and where they could move to the next level.
As rewarding as the actual certification was, the real reward was what it took to get there, said Joan Deal, R.N., M.S.N., director of nursing and quality, cardiovascular/neurosciences, who helped prepare Centra Health’s Magnet application.
“We were thrilled to achieve the certification,” she said, “but the real take-away was the process itself. In turning the spotlight on ourselves, we saw what we needed to improve to continue to strengthen our practice environment.”
Changes along the way
Deal said one of the most pivotal changes was establishing shared governance. Shared governance helps nurses participate in making decisions with their clinical administrator in areas that affect their practice, such as major equipment purchases or new computer installations.
Management style evolved into more of a coaching process, as nurses took on more decision-making. This is an evolution similar to the one taking place at many progressive companies in all industries, where an effort is made to push more decision-making to the people who are closest to the customer. The decisions affect all manner of patient care, including nurses setting their own schedules to provide maximum flexibility while ensuring all shifts are covered.
The research element of Quality of Care, one of the 14 Forces of Magnetism, is considered by hospitals large and small as one of the most difficult to demonstrate. Magnet requires that hospitals have an infrastructure where nurses have the resources available for evidence-based practice and the ability to set up research trials on their own. As Centra Health’s research activities were being recorded as part of the application process, nurses were surprised to see all the research they were doing.
“We were amazed to discover all that was going on,” said Cindy Goodrich, R.N., a Magnet coordinator and women’s health educator. “Every unit always has had process improvement initiatives. Some were and some weren’t evidence-based.”
Centra Health formed a research council, which became the driving force in pulling its resources together. Today, the research council supports nurses by offering mini grants.
Centra Health has discovered several ways that the designation has helped improve patient care. For example, Centra Health has been using benchmarks to improve quality for years, and now can compare its program in a variety of metrics with the best programs in the nation.
