PubMed · 14718766
Nursing Management profiles a number of hospitals that attained Magnet status from the American Nurses Credentialing Center.
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Nicole T Taylor. 2004. The Magnetic pull.. https://doi.org/10.1097/00006247-200401000-00014
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From the clinics of South Africa, where there are "No Gun" signs on the walls; to the rural island hospital in Micronesia, where there is no running water; to the urban hospitals of Los Angeles serving non-English speaking clients from around the globe; to the nurse-run clinics in the harsh Alaska frontier, nurses are focused on doing their best to give quality nursing care. This focus on providing quality care is commendable. However, nurses must also focus on taking care of themselves so they are able both to continue providing quality care for their patients and to maintain the profession's ability to recruit and retain new nurses. In nursing textbooks from the late 1980s and early 1990s, risks to health care workers were listed only as sub headings in sections such as infectious agents and musculoskeletal injuries, or in general chapters on "women's work." It is a remarkable sign of progress that there is now a discrete focus on the health and safety of health care workers. This article provides a general introduction to the topic of nurse safety. First the major areas of health and safety concerns and the Hierarchy of Controls framework for risk reduction will be outlined. Next, findings from American Nurses Association (ANA) surveys which helped to crystallize the issue of safety and challenged the profession to focus on nurse safety will be presented. Following this, the linkages between patient safety and nurse safety will be discussed. Finally national reports, environmental initiatives, and policy successes and opportunities related to nurse safety will be noted.
In response to the significant number and severity of work-related back injuries and other musculoskeletal disorders among nurses, the American Nurses Association (ANA) has launched the Handle With Care campaign. The campaign seeks to build a health care industry-wide effort to prevent back and other musculoskeletal injuries. This is being done through developing partnerships and coalitions, education and training, increasing use of assistive equipment and patient-handling devices, reshaping nursing education to incorporate safe patient handling, and pursuing federal and state ergonomics policy by highlighting technology-oriented safe-patient handling benefits for patients and nurses. In the absence of ergonomics regulations at national or state levels that protect health care workers, ANA has taken on alternative approaches to encourage a movement to control ergonomic hazards in the health care workplace and prevent back injuries among the nation's nursing workforce.
Nursing faces yet another divergence between demand and supply that is evidenced in insufficient nurse staffing with significant implications for patient safety. Many believe this shortage of registered nurses is entrenched in long-standing problems related to the value and image of nursing and the limited role nursing has had in identifying priorities within health care delivery systems. "Nursing's Agenda for the Future" is a plan resulting from the experience and wisdom of a broad representation of general nursing and nursing specialty organizations. Efforts to realize the priorities and objectives have evolved over the past two years in order to make larger strides, or quantum leaps, toward reaching the objectives contained within the plan. This article reviews the activities leading up to the development of this plan, presents the key areas of concern addressed in this plan, describes what has been accomplished since the publication of this plan in 2002, and outlines the work that lies ahead to bring to fruition the objectives the plan established.