Nursing excellence at UC Davis Medical Center again receives national recognition

UC Davis Medical Center continues to be among elite clinical-care institutions in the nation. This week, the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) announced that it has renewed the hospital’s Magnet® designation for another four-year term.

Magnet designation is the highest form of recognition for nursing excellence in the country, and it serves as a benchmark for the quality of care patients receive. Only about 8 percent of the hospitals in the nation have achieved the designation, and UC Davis Medical Center is the only hospital in the Sacramento region with it.

“I’m really proud ANCC has again honored UC Davis Medical Center as a Magnet designated organization,” said Toby Marsh, chief nursing and patient care services officer at UC Davis Medical Center. “What it really represents is the hard work that all the members of the care team across UC Davis Health do to provide our patients with the best possible care at all times.”

The chair of the Commission on Magnet Recognition, Donna Havens, called Marsh yesterday as part a gathering of more than 100 people on UC Davis’ Sacramento campus who anticipated the good news. Havens noted a number of accomplishments – what the commission calls ‘exemplars’ – of good nursing practices and initiatives that enabled UC Davis to achieve the renewed honor. She pointed to daily safety huddles, nurse education and training, and the leveraging of the hospital’s electronic medical records to reduce infections as among the exemplars of excellence.

“UC Davis Medical Center is now one of the 36 organizations in California [to achieve Magnet status], which is testament to your commitment to nursing excellence to support the entire health care team and, most importantly, to the patients and families you serve,” said Haven.

The medical center’s nursing team began the rigorous journey toward Magnet renewal more than two years ago. Earlier this year, a team led by the hospital’s Magnet Program Director Ellen Kissinger submitted more than 4,000 pages of documents and other materials required for renewal.

The application was followed by a four-day site visit in August, with ANCC appraisers touring nearly 70 nursing and related units and meeting with nearly 1100 people from throughout the health system.

According to the ANCC, Magnet designation indicates an organization in which nurses can flourish as professionals. These select health-care entities place an emphasis on providing their nursing staff with the professional autonomy to make clinical decisions at patient bedsides. They also involve nurses in decisions regarding the patient-care environment as well as enable more interdisciplinary collaborations with other care-team members.