Magnet champions from throughout YNHH contributed to the re-designation application and are educating and getting colleagues excited about Magnet.
With the push of a button on Feb. 1, Yale New Haven Hospital sent off its Magnet® re-designation application — a 322-page website with graphs, statistics and stories that illustrate what it takes and what it means to be a YNHH nurse and a Magnet organization. This was accomplished through the leadership and support of Sue Fitzsimons, RN, PhD, senior vice president, Patient Services, who stressed that the Magnet application was an extraordinary team effort.
Hundreds of YNHH nurses collaborated with inter-professional partners across many disciplines to contribute to the application sent to the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), which awarded initial Magnet designation to the hospital in 2011. The ANCC will spend four to eight months reviewing the re-designation application. If the application is accepted, YNHH will receive a four-day ANCC site visit.
The re-designation application covers the York Street and Saint Raphael campuses, Yale New Haven Children's Hospital's Bridgeport Campus and ambulatory settings.
"The application would not have been possible without the help of many people throughout the organization," said Danielle Huseman, RN, Magnet integration manager. "Gathering, analyzing and presenting all the evidence required for redesignation was a substantial project above and beyond their regular duties, but everyone involved has been enthusiastic and committed to our success."
The application shows how nurses have made a difference in the four Magnet domains: transformational leadership, structural empowerment, exemplary professional practice, and new knowledge, innovations and improvements. It also shows how the hospital supports nurses' professional development and a shared governance structure that gives nurses a voice in policies and practice.
Magnet contributors gathered more than 100 examples of YNHH nursing initiatives and projects that have had positive outcomes and wrote 49 documents for the website application that illustrate how YNHH clinical nurses:
- Collaborate with physicians and other clinical and non-clinical staff
- Initiate and/or provide input on quality improvement efforts
- Work with nursing leaders to consistently review data to measure outcomes
- Are guided by nursing leaders who advocate for and support nurses' professional development, excellence in nursing practice and autonomy
- Influence organization-wide change
- Engage in research and innovation
- Get involved in the community
- Demonstrate and promote ethics
- Support workplace safety
"Our nurses demonstrate excellence in these areas every day," Fitzsimons said. "Applying for Magnet re-designation gives us the opportunity to document and celebrate that excellence. It validates what we already know: That Yale New Haven Hospital nurses are exceptional."
