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Magnet Hospital: Is It Really Worth It?

Nursing is one of the most essential and respected roles within the healthcare industry, especially during COVID-19 times. The efforts they are taking to care for a patient is exceeding grace. And if you want to be the best part of the highly trained, most cutting edge, and well-positioned nurses team in the field – it’s maybe time to consider working at a hospital with Magnet status.

Magnet status is awarded by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC). It is awarded as a recognition of hospital facilities dedicated to their services to excellence in nursing. Apart from the nursing hospitals’ prestige working at a Magnet hospital has its own perks for nurses.

What is a Magnet Hospital?

The Magnet Recognition Program was first created in 1990 by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC). The Magnet Recognition Program drew on research guided by the American Academy of Nursing, which came up with fourteen components of healthcare facilities that successfully recruited and retained nurses.

Because of their ability to bring in and keep on the most qualified nurses, these fourteen characteristics were nicknamed as the Forces of Magnetism. And the Forces of Magnetism fall into five main components the American Nurses Association used as a framework to create the distinction of Magnet status.

Understanding the Magnet Designation

In 1994, the American Nurses Credentialing Center approved The University of Washington Medical Center as the first hospital to earn Magnet status. Then eventually, the Magnet status included health care facilities and long term care facilities outside the US. The leading five components are:

  • Structural Empowerment
  • Transformational Leadership
  • New Knowledge, Innovation and Improvements
  • Exemplary Professional Practice
  • Empirical Quality Results

To be considered for getting Magnet status for your health care facility, the facility must demonstrate their nursing leadership programs, arrange a site visit, submit a Magnet application, employ nurses with only specific education requirements, and should follow a set of rules and guidelines created by the American Nurses Credentialing Center for a 4 years period. And finally, they should reapply for Magnet designation.

Earning a Magnet status for your healthcare facility is not a small task. It takes many resources and a significant period of time for health care facilities. Earning the Magnet status has its perks as providing long term benefits for the hospital, nurses, and patients are all well documented.

Support for Professional Development

One of the components for a hospital’s Magnet status is directly linked to having qualified nurses placed in positions of leadership within the health care facility. Working in a Magnet hospital gives nurses the experience to influence hospital administration by entering into leadership positions.

The support from the health care facility can result in better opportunities for professional advancement from nurses to managerial or administrative roles. There’s also a vested interest in making sure their nursing teams are held to a high standard and well-trained, and it can offer future opportunities for professional development.

Less Potential for Burnout

Nursing burnout is at an extreme peak. Occupational burnout is the result of chronic work-related pressure and stress, and nurses are certainly not immune to these problems. Experts in the field suggest that nursing burnout is associated with coronary heart disease, worse job performance, and poor mental health outcomes.

Indeed, it’s not a great thing for a caregiver to be in such a situation, but studies found that nurses who work in Magnet hospitals are less likely to reach the burning point. Studies and research are confirming that nurses working in a Magnet hospital have found a 13% lower rate of nursing burnouts than nurses working at non Magnet hospitals.

Nursing is indeed one of the highly stressful professions out there. Lower rates of nursing burnout are indicating that higher job satisfaction, and it can directly influence a nurse’s quality of life and patient care.

Better Job Satisfaction

The main advantage of nurses working in a Magnet hospital is better job satisfaction. A study on nurses’ outcomes in working in Non-Magnet and Magnet hospitals found that nurses working in Magnet status hospitals were 18% less likely to be dissatisfied with their job than nurses working in Non-Magnet hospitals. Magnet hospitals are singled out for the care and quality of their nursing workforce.

They have also proven a high standard of care, quality, and leadership within the hospital administration. For a hospital to earn its Magnet status, it must have a Chief Nursing Officer among the hospital’s highest governing strategic planning and decision-making bodies. With nurses in positions of leadership within the hospital, they are able to institute changes that benefit nurses and improve nurse job satisfaction.

How to Get a Job at Magnet Hospital

A magnet hospital has achieved its status as the highest form of international nursing recognition that a healthcare institution can attain. These health care facilities excel in multiple areas as that, so they are selective about their employment.

They often give hiring preferences to nurses who completed their registered nursing degree or an RN-BSN program. There are various RN-BSN nursing scholarships and other financial aid programs to support your education needs. As a nurse, if you are interested in working in a Magnet hospital, you need to stand out to impress your employers.

Keeping up with their job vacancies and networking is an excellent way to get hired in a Magnet hospital. You can also introduce yourself and your qualifications to the human resources staff in the Magnet hospitals. You can go to professional organizations or clubs and spend some quality time volunteering at hospitals.

These all are excellent ways to form connections with current staff and managers in the Magnet hospital where you would like to work. With an RN-BSN degree and the right networking skills, you are on your way to a job at your first Magnet hospital.

 

Atif Mallo

Atif Mallo is a freelance blogger with huge interest in technology, science, life hacks and health. He loves coffee, cheesecake and chess. Drop a line in comments to leave feedback for him.

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