The Miriam Hospital in Providence, R.I., is one of only six hospitals around the world to achieve the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Magnet designation seven times.
The ANCC’s Magnet Recognition Program describes an organization’s capacity to attract and retain nurses, acting as a magnet for the workforce. One component of the designation is transformational leadership, which aligns with the management philosophy held by Seanna Zimmerman, DNP, RN, vice president and chief nursing officer of The Miriam Hospital.
In the 2000s, when Dr. Zimmerman stepped into her first managerial role, she came across a Harvard Business Review article that inspired a weekly practice of checking in on hundreds of people’s lives.
Every week, Dr. Zimmerman asks her six direct reports to send her life event updates of their direct reports, and those leaders of their reports, and so on to include all 1,300 nursing employees. Whether it is a wedding, graduation, anniversary, death of a loved one or another life event, she pens a handwritten note and mails it to the person’s home.
“I call them my CNO moments that matter, because I’ve been a frontline staff member and had a loss of a sibling. Not to have that acknowledged by anybody in your workplace left a little bit of a scar on me,” Dr. Zimmerman told Becker’s. “I never want any of our team members to feel that way. Because although there’s over 1,300 staff members that report up to me, that is the biggest moment in their life right at that time. And if they don’t feel that we see them for where they are, and support them in that and acknowledge it, then I feel like we do them a complete disservice.”
In addition to transformational leadership, the four other elements of a Magnet designation are structural empowerment, exemplary professional practice, empirical outcomes, and new knowledge, innovations and improvements. The Miriam Hospital has met these components in 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2015, 2020 and 2024.
Dr. Zimmerman said that although achieving seven Magnet designations is exciting, the accomplishment is more a reflection of the hospital’s culture than a checklist to complete.
“What Magnet means to the Miriam, it reflects our culture,” Dr. Zimmerman said. “It’s not a checklist, it’s not a moment or something we’re really striving for. … And what that means is that nurses have a voice at every single level.”
To empower nurses to speak up and “stop the line,” Miriam Hospital has a shared governance wherein nurses sit on councils and committees in pursuit of excellent, patient-centered care, Dr. Zimmerman said.
One aspect of the hospital’s culture is fostering a psychologically safe workplace to raise issues. Innovating solutions is another.
For example, a Miriam nurse recently honored with an excellence in nursing award, Stephanie Santos, BSN, RN, pioneered a recycling program and “green team.”
About four years ago, Ms. Santos identified the waste generated in healthcare and voiced the problem through different councils and committees. She helped set up different containers and a system to share resources with other healthcare facilities across the globe, Dr. Zimmerman said.
The CNO advisory council is another avenue to escalate problems. The council, which meets quarterly and is composed of about 20 front-line nurses, focuses on the day-to-day frustrations.
“It’s their opportunity to have my undivided attention to really hear from them, what’s going well, what’s not and any ideas that they have to make our hospital and the care that we provide better,” Dr. Zimmerman said. “One of my mottos is it’s my job to take care of my team, so that they take care of their team, so that our front-line staff take care of our patients.”
