Nursing

Inside scoop from our experts: Collecting stories

HCPro's Weekly Update on the ANCC Magnet Recognition Program®*, June 21, 2010

This week’s question on staff education comes from a discussion on JourneyTalk. Laurel Trahan RN BSN MHSA NE-BC, project director at Fairview Hospital in Great Barrington, MA, provides some insight.

Q: We are trying to establish an efficient process to collect our ANCC Magnet Recognition Program® stories. Would anyone be willing to share their process of establishing the method to collect patient/family and team member stories and if you have a committee that reviews and approves these stories and if your hospital requires patient consent for stories, as well as how you proceed to obtain patient consent.

A: It is difficult—I found that I get most of my stories by going around to the units. When I need specific stories, I ask questions and generally tape record what the staff say and then type them up back in my office, weaving the details into a narrative.

We did have one very successful story gathering strategy when were writing up our relationship-based care examples. We held about a dozen forums with about six to eight nurses in each. Each nurse was asked to tell about an experience where relationship-based care (RBC) was evident with patient, families, and other staff. No one was prepped on these forums ahead of time, except to say we would talk about RBC. After the first two groups finished, word spread rapidly among staff that administration wanted to hear their stories and people were really excited about this and wanted to join in. The stories were just awesome; some very simple, others more complex. We taped the stories on a digital recorder and then emailed the Windows media files to someone for transcription in a Word document. The whole project cost us less than $200. The nurses were off the floors for about an hour each.

Editor's note: On JourneyTalk you can network with your peers, discuss the new manual, share your helpful tips, and get advice on how to meet the program's expectations. Become a member of JourneyTalk when you subscribe to HCPro's Resource Center for the ANCC Magnet Recognition Program®.

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