Southeast Missouri Hospital gets sought-after designation again

Enthusiastic applause and joyful whoops greeted Sharon Stenson during Monday afternoon's announcement that Southeast Missouri Hospital earned a second Magnet designation.

The American Nurses' Credentialing Center uses Magnet to recognize hospitals for excellence in nursing services. Stenson, the hospital's director of patient care services, documented nurses' work for both Magnet applications using 160 categories for rating nursing excellence.

Working with a Magnet committee of hospital employees, she found stories of nurses who cared enough to throw birthday parties for bedridden patients, volunteered to join medical studies and, in one case, take a patient's dog home until the patient recovered.

The 11 volumes of information tell "not just the story of the nurses, but the story of the hospital," she said Monday afternoon during the announcement.

Only 2 percent of the hospitals with a four-year Magnet designation are able to retain it, according to vice president/chief nursing officer Karen Hendrickson, EdD, RN, and it reflects "some of the best nursing practices in the nation."

As an example, Hendrickson cited a nurse-to-patient ratio from 1-to-2 for intensive care patients to 1-to-5 in other patient-care areas of the hospital. She said the hospital has a 3 percent vacancy rate for nurses, far lower than the national rate of 8.1 percent reported by the American Hospital Association.

"That speaks to the wisdom and exchange of knowledge that takes place between novice and experience nurses," she said. "We've never hired an agency or temporary staff nurse."

The hospital first earned Magnet status in 2004. The Joint Commission for Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, which regulates hospitals, recognizes Magnet as a quality award.

Jim Wente, the hospital's president and chief executive officer, said the Magnet honor "assures all of our patients that they will receive some of the finest nursing care available anywhere in the country and very likely a better outcome."

"The first time, we were exited," said Kathy O'Howell, a nurse for the hospital's education services department. "Then to get it again, when only 2 percent of hospitals do, is phenomenal."

Dolly Jewel and Carolyn Goodin, volunteers in the hospital's emergency room, were delighted when they learned the reason for the green and gold balloon bouquets being delivered around the hospital as part of the celebration.

"To have received it once is an honor, but to get it again speaks so well for our nurses and of what we do here," Goodin said.

The American Nurses' Credentialing Center has Magnet-designated 316 hospitals, fewer than 5 percent of the hospitals in the nation.

pmcnichol@semissourian.com

388-3646

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