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• Hospitals with Magnet designation benefit from
national recognition for high quality care, cost
savings due to lower nurse turnover and access to
best practices and successful nursing strategies.
• Nurses practicing in hospitals with Magnet designation report higher levels of autonomy, professional
development and participation in decision making.
• Physicians benefit from the credits associated with
Magnet status in national rankings of clinical
challenge of the future. We are very proud that at the
same time we’re achieving higher and higher qual-
ity and service scores, nursing lowered the cost per
patient day of medical-surgical supplies by 23 per-
cent, per diem staffing by 19 percent and overtime by
18 percent in 2011 compared to 2010. Higher quality,
more satisfying and more affordable care – it doesn’t
get better than that.
programs (e.g. U.S. News and World Report), and
GROWTH
retain the best physicians.
Unit on 5 East, added 10 additional Neonatal Inten-
an excellent nursing staff helps to attract and
In terms of the numbers, our document was 1400
pages long, we received 3 exemplars of excellence
from the site visit, and we are due for redesignation
in 4 years.
SERVICE
We had two very important Service accomplishments:
• We exceeded our target goal for Press Ganey and
continue to increase and sustain higher scores
through Carolina Care™.
• UNCH has the highest Hospital Consumer Assess-
ment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS)
scores in the Triangle.
Implementation of Carolina Care™ continued to ex-
pand throughout UNC Health Care including Surgical
Services and the Oncology and Children’s clinics.
QUALITY
In the quality area, more than 50 percent of units
outperformed the national benchmark for the National Database for Nursing Quality Indicators (NDNQI):
85 percent for skin, 80 percent for restraints and 71
percent for Falls.
Nurses also contribute heavily to achieving bet-
ter than targeted scores for infection rates and core
measures including Ventilator Associated Pneumonia
(VAP) and Central Line Associated Blood Stream
Infections (CLABSI) and core measures for Acute
Myocardial Infection (AMI) and Heart Failure (HF).
This year we grew by 15 beds on our new Wound
sive Care bassinets and opened the Behavioral Health
Emergency Department, and the nation’s first and
only Perinatal Depression Unit.
INNOVATION
Last, there have been a number of very exciting
developments on our Innovations Unit, 4 Anderson
North, including the development of our Carolina
Care™ Partners in Practice Model in which an RN and
Clinical Support Technician II work as a consistent
pair, each practicing to the full scope of his or her
license/certification.
The discreet five bed Perinatal Depression Unit in Psychiatry is extremely innovative, and we successfully
implemented Open Access for Heart and Vascular,
Burn, and Oncology patients needing our services.
I am prouder of the nursing staff of UNCH every year.
Their contributions play a significant role in the en-
richment and advancement of our profession locally,
regionally and nationally, and most importantly in the
lives of our patients and their families, the people of
North Carolina we are privileged to serve.
Sincerely,
Mary Tonges,
RN, PhD, NEA-BC, FAAN
Senior Vice President and Chief
Nursing =