Magnet Status
In the world today, health care is probably one of the most important rights a human being should be able to expect. In fact, the quality of health care offered at any given time can mean the difference not only between illness and health, but even between as much as life and death. For this reason, all health care personnel are subject to a code of ethics based upon the Hippocratic oath, which in essence focuses on maintaining health and well-being, or achieve these as quickly and as far as possible. This is also the underlying for the recent addition of Magnet status to healthcare providing institutions.
The term "magnet" was first applied to health care settings in 1982, when the American Academy of Nursing used it to refer to the phenomenon of "attracting and "retaining" nurses within high quality work environments (Aiken, n.d.). By 1990, the importance of the term grew to become part of an accreditation system known as Magnet Recognition. This was awarded to institutions that provided the best environment for nursing practice. But the history of the principles behind this recognition reward can be traced even further back than the 1980s. Florence Nightingale was the first to draw a proven parallel between hospital conditions and patient mortality.
Nightingale's investigations, for example, revealed that the mortality rate in British military hospitals during the Crimean...
Nightingale began implementing her reforms in March, which results in a mortality rate of only 2% by September of the same year.
Sadly, patient safety even in today's hospitals, is not at as high a level as might be desired. There are still more preventable deaths than administrators should expect. For this reason, researchers today have taken a page from Nightingale's book by comparing mortality rates with various conditions nurses and patients face in hospital environments (Aiken, n.d.). So, for example, a good interrelationship among healthcare team members, along with individual factors such as nurse burnout can affect patient outcomes favorable or unfavorably.
One significant finding is that nurse burnout is as high as 43% in the United States, with other countries following this number to a greater or lesser degree. Burnout in nursing is a very dangerous phenomenon, which can be associated with preventable errors, adverse health outcomes, and even death.
Aiken (n.d.) also notes nurses' perceptions regarding patient outcomes in good vs. poor work environments. In better environments, for example, medication errors are 73% less likely, patient falls with injuries are 90% less likely, and Nosocomial infections occur 55% less.
For these reasons, it his highly important to ensure a better work environment…
