Here’s another case study for the 12th week of the Nursing Research Challenge.

The Article: Faust, B. H. (2011). Applying the Magnet model to improve medication administration. American Nurse Today, 5(3): 54-55.

The Big Idea: Sinai Hospital’s direct-care nurses improved bedside medication administration through an interdisciplinary project that created robots to fill and deliver medications to patients and medication cabinets located within each room with locking drawers nurses can access with their employee badges.

Survey Says!: Direct-care nurses worked with numerous hospital disciplines while providing significant input into the entire process of new medication cabinets from selecting the cabinet vendor to brainstorming locking options to identifying where medication cabinets would be placed in each room. This process contributed to the hospital’s Magnet components.

Quotable: “Feedback from RNs on the new cabinets continues to be extremely encouraging. RNs have stated that the bedside-cabinet process has positively affected their workflow and increased their time with patients. Patients are pleased, too, by the added medication security, and state they feel better knowing that only their medications are stored in their bedside cabinet.”

So What?: The Magnet model continues to bring direct-care nurses to the forefront of system changes that directly impact and improve patient care.