TCH Nurses’ Great Work Fills Magnet Documents

from Caring For Our Future, Spring 2005

By Ann Froese-Fretz, MS, RN, Magnet Program Coordinator

We have come to the end of documentation collection for Magnet designation! There are still a few documents dribbling in, but I have received the majority of them. I already have started writing “our story” for submission to the Magnet Program of the American Nurses’ Credentialing Center . We are planning to have our documents submitted by the end of March. That time is coming very fast, so I will be locked in my office until then!

The difficult part of writing the documentation is that there is no set format. In writing “our story,” I must address all the forces of magnetism and all the sources of evidence required within each force. I can put the information in any order we think makes sense, because “it is our story.” We have multiple examples to cover every force and every source of evidence within each force. As I have said many times, it will be hard to decide what NOT to include.

Each of the 14 forces of magnetism has six to 28 “sources of evidence” that must be addressed. For example, in Force 12, Image of Nursing, one source of evidence states, “Give examples of how the community perceives nursing as well as nursing services provided within the organization.” This is an easy source to address. We have a glowing letter from the executive director of student services of Englewood Schools about the school nursing services provided by TCH.

Kathy Crawley, vice president for the TCH Foundation, wrote an excellent exemplar about the Foundation’s relationship to nursing at TCH and the Foundation’s ability to raise money to be used specifically for nursing programs. Lynne Hedrick has asked the president of TCH’s Board of Directors, Don Elliman, (who also had a child who was a patient at Children’s) to write an exemplar about his view of nursing at TCH. He was more than willing to write up as many things as she wanted, and had only positive things to say about nurses at Children’s. In Denver ’s Nursing Star, a twice-monthly publication for the Denver metro area, TCH nurses are featured on a regular basis. During 2004, of the 24 editions published, 10 of them had articles about TCH nurses or nursing at Children’s. We have multiple letters from families expressing their gratitude for the excellent nursing care their child received as a patient here at Children’s.

In the Consultation and Resources force, one source of evidence asks us to “describe how leadership facilitates and supports participation of nurses at all levels in the organization in health-care and community organizations (other than professional nursing organizations.)” We have only to look at the lengthy list from Stepping Stones to respond to this section. We are including only the Stepping Stones information from 2004, but the list is long.

Once again, it will be difficult to decide what NOT to include in the documentation. Nurses at Children’s:

• are involved in “Project Cure;”
• give talks at elementary, middle and high schools about health and wellness behaviors;
• volunteer at camps for children (Wilderness -Program for cancer patients, American Lung -Association asthma camp);
• teach first aid to girl scouts;
• are members of the Board of Directors for March of Dimes;
• volunteer at the Hall of Life at the Museum of -Nature & Science;
• volunteer at Special Olympics;
• give talks to community groups and other -professions about their specialty areas.

And the list goes on and on. All levels of leadership support and encourage nurses at TCH to help the communities in which we live, the surrounding region and the world (Rose Seavey in China talking about sterilization techniques, Theresa Rapstine in the Asia Pacific region working with SAFE KIDS Worldwide, Katie Duncan in Honduras and El Salvador working with Operation Smile, Lynn Cavaliero and Jennifer Wiman in Australia providing information about orienting new grads to a NICU).

Though this phase of the Magnet process will be overwhelmingly busy, it is so exciting and rewarding to see what TCH nurses are doing. This is the time to “pat ourselves on the back” for the amazing things we do every day. With this documentation, we can provide real data to show everyone else what great nurses we have at Children’s!