2009 MAGNET™ PROFILES - American Nurse Today

MAGNET PROFILES
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veys, try using what I call the “E” approach. It assigns
activities to four categories starting with the
letter E—expectations, education, engagement, and
evaluation.
Expectations
Leaders of each nursing unit must be clear about
their expectations for staff members. They must
spell out the unit’s mission, vision, and goals
(which should support the overall goals of the nursing
department and organization). The unit’s quality
initiatives must align not just with these goals
but with established best practices, as delineated in
such resources as:
• JC’s National Patient Safety Goals
• evidence-based clinical practice guidelines from
the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
• quality measures from the Centers for Medicare
& Medicaid (CMS)
• safe medication practices from the Institute of
Medicine and Institute for Safe Medication
Practices
• nursing-sensitive indicators from the American
Nurses Association.
Unit leaders must stay current on these organizations’
standards, databases, and measurement
tools for quality monitoring. They must incorporate
the expectation for meeting standards in everyday
interactions with their staff and when evaluating
care processes and outcomes on their units. As a
leader, you need to set the stage for safety and
quality. You must “walk the talk” every day.
Education
Staff members should be educated on quality initiatives
and unit-based outcomes on a continual basis.
Such education should focus on standards of care
and error avoidance, and should be delivered in a
way that emphasizes systems rather than casts
blame and metes out punishment.
The following educational strategies have
worked for many nursing units and departments:
• “Quality care” is a standing agenda item at
monthly meetings to ensure that qualityrelated
issues, current performance, and improvements
are discussed.
• Unit-based shared governance councils focus
on quality initiatives and share updates at unit
meetings. Decision making centers on patient
safety and quality of care.
• Unit bulletin boards have a designated “Quality
Corner” where staff members post nursing
report cards, performance improvement plans,
patient satisfaction data, and pertinent graphs.
• Unit leaders take advantage of informal
“teachable moments.” When making rounds,
for instance, they look for evidence of quality
To be here with the best.How can that not be inspiring?
At UWHC, we are proud to be a Magnet hospital and proud of our NDNQI designation as
the #1 Academic Medical Center for Nursing Quality. Together, it says everything about
the care we provide and the nurses who make it all possible. As a nurse here you should
have great expectations. We hope that you will always push us to go further, to do more,
to exceed and excel.
To you and to all of our Magnet colleagues let’s raise the bar even further and show the
world the difference we can make together.
uwhealth.org/futureofnursing
The future of nursing is here.
64 American Nurse Today Volume 4, Number 8