Magnet Status in Hospitals Overview of A Magnet Facility

A Magnet facility is defined as a healthcare organization where nurses have a high level of job satisfaction, nursing delivers excellent patient outcomes, and there is low nurse staff turnover rate. A health care organization that manages to attract, and retain top nurses within its facility is defined as a magnet facility. Magnet recognition is the highest and prestigious distinction that a healthcare organization can receive for high-quality patient care and nursing excellence. This is not a prize or an award, but rather it is a performance driven recognition credential that is awarded by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC). This is clearly a gold standard in healthcare provision with only 8% of U.S. hospital earning Magnetic status. Earning this status brings internal benefits and external prestige to the healthcare organization. Taking the journey to becoming a Magnet facility results in a striking impact on quality, cost, service, and human resource measures (Fitzpatrick, 2010). Studies have shown that Magnet facilities have a higher percentage of satisfied registered nurses, lower nurse turnover, improved clinical outcomes, improved patient satisfaction, and greater nurse autonomy. In order to earn the Magnet designation, a facility has to meet the 14 standards of the original Forces of Magnetism that were grouped into five components...

The five key components are transformational leadership, structural empowerment, exemplary professional practice, new knowledge, innovations and improvements, and empirical outcomes. Transformational leadership component empowers a healthcare organization to change in order to meet future needs. This requires a clear vision, mission, clinical knowledge, influence, and strong professional nursing practice. Structural empowerment refers to the solid processes and structures developed by leadership to offer an environment that encourages and promotes professional practice. The organization's policies should promote partnerships and strong relationships with other healthcare professionals in order to improve healthcare outcomes. The exemplary professional practice component entails the comprehensive understanding of the nursing role, application of the role with patients, communities, families, and interdisciplinary team. The nursing research Magnet component is referred to as new knowledge, innovations, and improvements. For a healthcare to earn the Magnet recognition, it must demonstrate that it is applying existing evidence, creating new models of care, building new evidence, and it is making a visible contribution to the nursing science. The empirical outcomes component asks healthcare organizations "What difference have you made?"
Healthcare organizations that have the Magnet status have…