Remember The Mission

Documents ready to be sent off.

“Put the argument into a concrete shape, into an image, some hard phrase, round and solid as a ball, which they can see and handle and carry home with them and the cause is half won.”    - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our Magnet stories took many shapes and forms. They were as solid as a baseball. As it turned out we had stories, pictures, graphs and even a DVD of our nurses and patients explaining our Professional Practice Model.

The Magnet Project Director, Evelyn Swenson-Britt, MS, RN, showed no mercy as everyone was asked to contribute stories and ideas so we could create concrete images for our Magnet Appraisers to read. We had stories from nursing leaders, department directors, educators, vice presidents; and team members from inpatient, ambulatory, AirLife, information systems, respiratory, pharmacy, shared governance, and of course, our Magnet Champions! We had facts and figures available to show within our budget, outcomes, safety, quality and demographics. The spread sheets were endless. The stories were written, edited and read multiple times. Every story included some material from the 88 sources of evidence.

It’s no doubt that it takes an entire organization like University Health System to provide the evidence to support Magnet documentation. When all the data was completed and compiled, it was reduced to a DVD and mailed with plenty of positive thoughts and hopes for an opportunity to show more.

As Emerson reminds us, “Reality is more excellent than the report.”We hope to show our American Nursing Credentialing Center (ANCC) appraisers all the hard work and dedication that our employees are committed to in making the data on these documents come to life during their future Magnet site visits to University Health System.