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Centra Health: TappingTechnology to Help Meet Magnet Standards By Patti S. McCue, RN Senior Vice President, Patient Care Services and Chief Nursing Officer Centra Health  Meeting Magnet Expectations At Centra Health, we have a motto that we live by: "Excellent Care... Every Time." Participating in the American Nurses Credentialing Center's (ANCC) Magnet Recognition Program® is one way we make sure that there is substance behind the sentiment contained in these words. Centra attained Magnet status in 2005 and is seeking recertification in 2009. To earn the prestigious recognition, organizations must undergo a rigorous evaluation that centers on five model components:  Transformational Leadership Structural Empowerment Exemplary Professional Practice New Knowledge, Innovations and Improvements Empirical Outcomes We have found that the certification process has prompted our two-hospital system to zero in on how nurses work, their productivity and clinical outcomes. Controlling the Care Process with Electronic Data Our quest to achieve and maintain Magnet status has led us to closely examine the nursing role. For example, instead of acting as "task masters," Centra nurses now take ownership and control of the entire multidisciplinary care process, ultimately working to ensure that we continually deliver outstanding outcomes. To do so, nurses rely on Horizon Clinicals® solutions from McKesson to support an interdisciplinary care planning approach. By accessing the data in these systems, nurses coordinate and facilitate patient care because they know what all the other members of the care team are doing. In short, care plans are no longer handwritten on separate pieces of paper by each clinician. Instead, nurses manage the entire plan by tapping into an integrated repository of data that is populated with individual caregiver contributions to the plan. The Magnet program also prompts us to ensure – and prove – that our organization is efficiently using its nursing resources. At Centra, we rely on McKesson's nurse/staff and enterprise productivity management system to optimally schedule nurses in an effort to meet the clinical needs of our patients. Data from the system is also used to support our nursing practice council in developing staffing guidelines for shift management. Leveraging Technology to Make the Most of Nursing Resources While this system enables us to effectively tap our nursing resources, we strive to continually analyze exactly how we use nurses' time on a day-to-day basis. McKesson's performance analytics system enables us to view financial, clinical and operational data as well as role-based scorecards that illustrate what our nurses are doing with their time. For example, we can query the system to determine exactly how much time nurses are spending at the patient bedside and how much time they are spending in educational activities — both important Magnet criteria. The analytical tool also helps our organization assess case mix information by nursing unit. Such information helps us match our clinical resources to the needs of the patients we serve. In addition, the technology helps to ensure that our staff make-up mirrors our patients in terms of diversity — another important Magnet consideration. Access to our composite patient profile also helps us develop services that meet the needs of patients more closely. Using Technology to Demonstrate Improved Outcomes In addition to focusing on interdisciplinary care planning and productivity, the Magnet program has prompted us to zero in on outcomes, a criterion that is taking center stage in the ANCC's revised Magnet Model. With information from our clinical systems, we can demonstrate improved outcomes in a number of areas. For example, we have met or exceeded expectations on a number of nursing quality measures, such as patient falls, hospital-acquired pressure ulcers and medication events (see scorecard below). Concentrating on the performance of each individual nurse will become more important as we seek recertification as a Magnet facility in 2009 and as outcomes become more central to the focus of the recognition program. To improve outcomes, we will use our analytics system to measure and evaluate individual nurse performance on measures such as the Joint Commission's National Patient Safety Goals. Patti S. McCue, RN, is the Senior Vice President, Patient Care Services and the Chief Nursing Officer at Centra Health, a two-hospital system based in Lynchburg, Va. McCue is a Johnson & Johnson/Wharton Executive Fellow. She has also been honored with Nursing Excellence Awards from the South Carolina League for Nursing, the S.C. Hospital Association and the S.C. Organization of Nurse Executives, and the Medical University of S.C. Medical Center (along with its Outstanding Nursing Alumnus Award). She currently serves on the McKesson Nurse Advisory Council. McCue is a frequent lecturer and has been published in various nursing journals. |
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