Children's Hospital Earns Prestigious Recognition

parents and children, how would you describe your experiences at Children's Hospital?

Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC has earned prestigious Magnet recognition, granted by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) to only 6 percent of hospitals nationwide.

ANCC’s Magnet recognition program recognizes health care organizations for quality patient care, nursing excellence and innovations in professional nursing practice.

Of more than 6,000 health care organizations nationwide, only 395 have achieved Magnet status. Children’s joins UPMC St. Margaret and UPMC Shadyside as the only UPMC hospitals with the coveted designation.

“We’re proud to be recognized as a Magnet hospital and join a short list of truly outstanding health care organizations,” said Christopher Gessner, hospital president, in a statement. “Magnet recognition is the highest honor we can achieve for nursing excellence, and it really speaks to the highly professional and team-focused culture that we strive for at Children’s.”

To achieve Magnet recognition, organizations must pass a rigorous and lengthy process that demands widespread participation from hospital leadership and staff. The process begins with the submission of an electronic application, followed by written documentation demonstrating qualitative and quantitative evidence regarding patient care and outcomes.

If scores from the written documentation fall within a range of excellence, an on-site visit occurs to thoroughly assess the applicant. After this rigorous on-site review process, the Commission on Magnet will review the completed appraisal report and vote to determine whether Magnet recognition is granted.

Children’s began its journey to Magnet excellence more than two years ago under the leadership of Children’s Chief Nursing Officer Diane Hupp, MSN, RN.

On July 18, 2012, with hundreds of nurses, physicians and other staff looking on in the hospital’s Eat’n Park Atrium, Hupp was notified during a conference call with Magnet commission officials that Children’s approval was unanimous.

The commission cited the model Children’s has for patient- and family-centered care, a practice environment that empowers nurses, and the collaborative environment across all areas, including hospital leadership.

“Children’s has always been an environment that empowered nurses, but our Journey to Magnet Excellence has fostered new processes that more formally foster a culture of collaboration, not only among nurses, but across disciplines,” Hupp said in a statement. “What we’ve achieved is remarkable, and it is something we will continue to build on in order to provide the most compassionate care possible to our patients and families in a highly innovative environment.”

The Magnet model is designed to provide a framework for nursing practice, research, and measurement of outcomes. Through this framework, ANCC can assess applicants across a number of components and dimensions to gauge an organization’s nursing excellence.

The foundation of this model is composed of various elements deemed essential to delivering superior patient care. These include the quality of nursing leadership and coordination and collaboration across specialties, as well as processes for measuring and improving the quality and delivery of care.

Magnet recognition has been shown to provide specific benefits to hospitals and their communities, such as:

• Higher patient satisfaction with nurse communication, availability of help, and receipt of discharge information;
• Lower risk of 30-day mortality and lower failure to rescue;
• Higher job satisfaction among nurses; and
• Lower nurse reports of intentions to leave position. 

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