Baldrige and Magnet Recognition
Poudre Valley Hospital of Fort Collins, Colorado, won the 2009 Magnet Prize for innovative nursing programs and practices in a Magnet organization. Poudre Valley Hospital received the Baldrige Award in 2008.
I’m often asked about the similarities of and differences between Baldrige and Magnet. The greatest similarity is that Magnet, like Baldrige, has a systems perspective of how an organization functions. In Magnet’s case, the emphasis is on the nursing organization, while Baldrige focuses on the management system of an entire organization, which would include nursing. However, the Magnet criteria ask about enough touch points between nursing and other parts of an organization to provide a broad system assessment.
In fact, the Magnet criteria align well with the seven Baldrige categories. Studer Group provides a simple table that shows the links here.
The biggest difference is in the effort required to respond to the Criteria. A Baldrige application can be no longer than 50 pages plus five pages for the Profile. A Magnet application can be no more than 15 inches in height, which translates to roughly 2,500 pages. While most of that is documentation, you may have to write 400 pages in response to Magnet’s Forces of Magnetism, not to mention the time it takes to identify, gather, copy, and assemble the supporting evidence.
You can learn more about the Magnet program here.
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