NZNO congratulates Hutt Valley DHB

June 27, 2007

Hutt Valley DHB recognition demonstrates importance of nursing care

NZNO congratulates Hutt Valley District Health Board (DHB) on winning magnet hospital status. “We congratulate all the nursing staff and other health care staff at Hutt on achieving magnet status. It has been a long and exhaustive process which has revealed the absolute importance of nurses and nursing care to patient outcomes. Hutt Valley has set an example to other district health boards around the country,” NZNO’s chief executive Geoff Annals said.

Annals described magnet status as an important American designation and Hutt Valley DHB is only the second hospital outside the United States (US) to join the 250 US hospitals with this distinction. “While the designation is American, the principles underlying magnet hospital credentialing are derived from the same literature that informed New Zealand’s Committee of Inquiry into Safe Staffing and Healthy Workplaces. These principles included nurses having responsibility and authority for decisions about nursing care,” he said.

It was important DHB managers understood the pivotal role of nursing in achieving high quality patient outcomes and the magnet process made that explicit, he said.

Given the nursing shortage and the high nursing turnover, particularly in North Island hospitals, NZNO expects other DHBs will be very interested to look at the turnover rate at Hutt Valley DHB. All DHBs are moving towards implementing the recommendations of the Committee of Inquiry and both approaches can be expected to reduce nursing turnover and improve recruitment, Annals said.

Magnet recognition is granted by the credentialing arm of the American Nurses’ Association. It is awarded to health care organisations that achieve excellence in nursing services and validates an organisation’s ongoing commitment to quality care.

ENDS

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