The best chart is usually not the newest, most elaborate, or most colorful. In fact, it's often the opposite. You don’t order a medical test for a patient just because you can--don’t just use the sexiest chart available either. So, how do you determine which chart is right for your audience?

The American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) Magnet Recognition Program® honors hospitals for excellence in nursing leadership, clinical practice, innovations, and positive outcomes. The current program has its roots in a ground-breaking study conducted by the American Academy of Nursing over 30 years ago.

For healthcare organizations, retention is critical in achieving patient-centered excellence. When retention suffers, the impact is felt across many hospital strategic priorities. Many organizations create a strategic goal around retention or employee turnover; however, retention matters, not in and of itself, but because of the outcome the goal produces.

Gone are the days of the fee-for-service model. Enter the Value-based Purchasing (VBP) model, where the care you deliver and the patient outcomes you achieve determine the amount of reimbursement the institution or healthcare professional receives. Patient outcomes and safety are the top priorities in healthcare. The challenge every healthcare institution and healthcare professional faces each day is how to provide cost-effective, evidence-based patient care that improves patient outcomes.

A comprehensive nurse preceptor program consists of structures and processes that are tied to two types of outcomes. There are no specific or prescriptive steps for developing a comprehensive program. Every organization will need to look at its culture, resources, and unique needs to determine the exact steps and content of its program. However, some universal guidelines and steps are helpful to consider when building a program from infancy.

Kettering Health Network was facing several challenges, including effectively managing employee competencies, standardizing its education program, improving HCAHPS scores, minimizing training inefficiencies, and improving its accreditation process. Since partnering with HealthStream, Kettering has pursued multiple solutions and, as a result, experienced significant improvements.