What Produce Magnets Draw?

Over 3 years ago, I wrote this piece on Magnet hospitals as well as took a lot of flak from people who said I was also harsh when I asserted that the Magnet organization was overstating things when it implied that Magnet hospitals had meliorate clinical outcomes.  I noted:

Currently, in that place are 391 Magnet hospitals.  As I facial expression through the listing of those from my ain province of Massachusetts, I don't come across whatever that offering sufficient public, real-time information nearly clinical lineament to examine the representative of higher quality.  And given the dearth of transparency amongst regard to clinical outcomes nationwide, it is difficult to believe that 1 could exercise thence inwards whatever other state.

I did a Google search on the theme of "quality of aid at Magnet hospitals" as well as found real little.  There was a 2010 thesis yesteryear Kelly Scott, a nursing pupil at the University of Kansas, entitled "Magnet Status: Implications for Quality of Patient Care," which said: 

In summary, this report did non honor evidence to back upwards the expectation that Magnet accreditation straight correlates to lower rates of hospital‐acquired infections. There was evidence to back upwards existing enquiry indicating that nursing workforce characteristics are meliorate inwards Magnet hospitals. While Magnet accreditation remains the golden criterion for nursing move environments, this condition does non automatically Pb to meliorate patient outcomes.

So forthwith facial expression at this article yesteryear Jennifer Thew inwards HealthLeaders Media, which makes a similar point: 

A report inwards the June number of Health Affairs supports the thought that the Magnet Recognition Program is, inwards fact, first-class at identifying excellence. But piece researchers found the programme to survive an accurate tool inwards identifying high-performing hospitals, they also uncovered roughly surprising nuances nearly Magnet facilities' surgical outcomes—namely, Magnet recognition lonely does non improve surgical patient outcomes.

"Many of us inwards the nursing community know that Magnet recognition confers a corking bargain of exercise goodness to the staff nurses as well as the nursing leadership that are inwards those institutions," says Christopher R. Friese, PhD, RN, AOCN, FAAN, assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Nursing inwards Ann Arbor.

But "there's been a enquiry equally to whether Magnet recognition was also associated amongst improved patient outcomes."

Friese says through the study, titled "Hospitals In 'Magnet' Program Show Better Patient Outcomes on Mortality Measures Compared to Non-'Magnet' Hospitals," he hoped to delve into how Magnet recognition was related to surgical patient outcomes.

For the published paper, he as well as his colleagues looked at thirteen years-worth of national Medicare information for 1.9 1000000 surgical patients hospitalized from 1998 to 2010 for coronary artery bypass graft surgery, colectomy, or lower extremity bypass. The anonymous information came from 1,000 hospitals across the solid soil as well as the report was funded yesteryear the National Institute of Nursing Research.

According to the report findings, surgical patients treated inwards Magnet hospitals were "7.7% less probable to croak inside thirty days of their operation, as well as 8.6% less probable to croak afterward a post-operative complication, compared amongst patients inwards non-Magnet hospitals."

"From the patient signal of view, if I accept to alternative a house to go, I desire to alternative a Magnet," Friese says.

The Big But
"In this study… what nosotros honor is yes, Magnets are better," he says, "but Magnets were meliorate to start with. They were meliorate many years earlier they were a Magnet as well as thence during as well as afterward their Magnet recognition their [surgical] outcomes don't change."

In short, in that place is no uncertainty that Magnet condition is proficient for many things, only let's non sell it equally something it isn't.

"If the destination is to improve engagement, satisfaction, as well as staff retention, Magnet is a real well-established agency to exercise that," Friese says. "If your motivation is, 'We accept a work amongst our patient outcomes [or] amongst our aid delivery,' pursuing Magnet recognition… may non survive the best purpose of your resources."

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