As of January 2011, just 382 international healthcare organizations have received the highly coveted Magnet™ designation.

Our goal is to add University Hospital and the Brown Cancer Center to this exclusive list. Achieving Magnet™ designation will not only recognize the quality of our Department of Nursing, but also demonstrate the critical role our nurses have in our organization’s success.

To start our “March to Magnet™” have formed five nursing councils. The councils set goals and establish standards of practice for our nursing staff. This represents a new organizational structure for the Department of Nursing, based on a shared decisionmaking model.

In a Magnet™ hospital, nurses at all levels participate in decision-making as valued members of the healthcare team. They are engaged, empowered and have a sense of responsibility, accountability and authority in clinical decision-making.

In January 2009, we began submitting nursing quality indicator data to the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators (NDNQI), a national benchmarking database. One of our 2011 organizational goals is for all quality indicators to achieve or exceed the median benchmark for academic medical centers.

It takes a commitment at all levels of an organization to pursue Magnet™ designation. Achieving this goal will demonstrate our commitment to excellence in patient care and outcomes.