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Magnet documentation: 10 tips for success

Nurse Leader Weekly, June 12, 2006

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Editor's note: The following excerpt is from HCPro's new book Magnet Director's Toolkit: A Guide to Collecting Evidence and Writing Narratives.

When preparing for the journey toward the ANCC's Magnet(r) designation, the documentation phase may seem particularly overwhelming. To start off on the right foot, consider the following top 10 tips for success:

1. Value vacation time
As mundane as it seems, ensure the timeline that your organization adopts allows for vacations and other renewing endeavors.

2. Support writers who are new to the organization
If a Magnet director who is new to the organization is slated to write most or all of the documentation, it is helpful for that person to interview appropriate personnel, as well as committee and council members to incorporate the best exemplars into the written documentation.

3. Hire administrative support
If your organization has the resources to do so, consider assigning a skilled secretarial professional who is dedicated to the primary author.

4. Represent the entire organization in your evidence
Ensure that not all of your evidence comes from your most notable services. When your documentation describes less frequently featured areas of nursing practice, it not only emphasizes the breadth of your nursing organization, but also provides interesting reading material for the appraisers.

5. Emphasize outcomes
The majority of the exemplars that your organization chooses to feature in the documentation should describe how your nursing organization was able to recognize problems, establish plans to address the problems, apply the plans, measure changes attributable to the plans, and revise those plans as necessary.

6. Hire an external editor
If your organization can afford to hire an external editor to review the documentation for your initial submission, it may prove helpful.

7. Familiarize staff with the content of the written documentation
Incorporating council feedback into the written documentation is one way the team can ensure that staff are familiar with the content of the documentation if approached by an appraiser during the site visit.

8. Accept that Magnet doesn't mean you're perfect
Magnet recognition has more to do with the journey than journey's end. Exemplars of undesirable outcomes can be powerful evidence in your documentation.

9. Enhance documentation for redesignation
Look to enhanced sophistication in the operations of all of the areas of your organization, as well as in the scope and strength of the evidence, the presentation, and the writing style of your documentation.

10. Maintain perspective
What's important is that the documentation reflects your unique culture of nursing excellence throughout all nursing levels and across all nursing practice areas.

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