Billings Clinic Achieves Magnet® Recognition For 5th Consecutive Time

Billings, MT - Billings Clinic is honored to announce that it has earned Magnet recognition for the fifth time, a testament to its continued dedication to high-quality nursing practice. The American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Magnet Recognition Program® distinguishes health care organizations that meet rigorous standards for nursing excellence. This credential is the highest national honor for professional nursing practice.

“Magnet recognition is a tremendous honor and reflects our commitment to delivering the highest quality of care to this community,” said Dania Block, Billings Clinic Chief Nursing Officer. “To earn Magnet recognition once was a great accomplishment and an incredible source of pride for our nurses. Our repeated achievement of this credential underscores the foundation of excellence and values that drive our entire staff to strive harder each day to meet the health care needs of the people we serve.”

Receiving Magnet recognition for the fifth time since 2006 is a significant achievement for Billings Clinic. Only 10.5% of hospitals in the United States have earned Magnet recognition, and just 640 hospitals nationwide and 25 international organizations across 12 countries currently hold the designation. Billings Clinic is also among only 141 hospitals in the nation to achieve Magnet recognition five times or more, placing it among an elite group recognized for sustained nursing excellence.

In 2006, Billings Clinic became the first health care organization in Montana and the region to earn Magnet recognition and has successfully maintained the designation through every four-year renewal cycle since. Today, it remains the only organization in the region to achieve Magnet recognition five times.

Research demonstrates that Magnet recognition provides specific benefits to health care organizations and their communities, such as:

• Higher patient satisfaction with nurse communication, availability of help and receipt of discharge information.
• Lower risk of 30-day mortality and lower failure to rescue rates.
• Higher job satisfaction among nurses.
• Lower nurse reports of intentions to leave their positions.

Magnet recognition is the gold standard for nursing excellence and is a factor when the public judges health care organizations. U.S. News & World Report’s annual showcase of “America’s Best Hospitals” includes Magnet recognition in its ranking criteria for quality of inpatient care.

The Magnet Model provides a framework for nursing practice, research, and measurement of outcomes. Through this framework, ANCC evaluates applicants across a number of components and dimensions to gauge an organization’s nursing excellence.

The foundation of this model comprises various elements deemed essential to delivering superior patient care. These include the quality of nursing leadership and coordination and collaboration across specialties, as well as processes for measuring and improving the quality and delivery of care.

To achieve initial Magnet recognition, organizations must pass a rigorous and lengthy process that demands widespread participation from leadership and staff. This process includes an electronic application, written patient care documentation, an on-site visit, and a review by the Commission on Magnet Recognition.

Health care organizations must reapply for Magnet recognition every four years based on adherence to Magnet concepts and demonstrated improvements in patient care and quality. An organization reapplying for Magnet recognition must provide documented evidence to demonstrate how staff members sustained and improved Magnet concepts, performance and quality over the four-year period since the organization received its 2021 recognition.

“We’re a better organization today because of the Magnet recognition we first achieved 20 years ago,” said Todd Blake, President of Billings Clinic. “Magnet recognition raised the bar for patient care and inspired every member of our team to achieve excellence every day. It is this commitment to providing our community with high-quality care that helped us become a Magnet-recognized organization, and it’s why we continue to pursue and maintain Magnet recognition.”

About Billings Clinic

Billings Clinic and Logan Health are united as a not-for-profit, Montana-based, independent health care system focused on keeping people close to home and connecting care in communities throughout the region. The unified health system serves an area that includes most of Montana, northern Wyoming and the western Dakotas. A not-for-profit organization led by a physician CEO, Billings Clinic is governed by a board of community members, nurses and physicians. At its core, Billings Clinic is a physician-led, integrated multispecialty group practice with a 336-bed hospital and Montana’s first Level I Trauma Center. Billings Clinic is the largest trauma center and the first established and longest standing ACS-COT continually accredited trauma center in the state of Montana. Billings Clinic has more than 4,500 employees, including nearly 600 physicians and advanced practitioners offering more than 80 specialties. Billings Clinic is the first Magnet-designated health care organization in Montana and a member of the Mayo Clinic Care Network. More information can be found at www.billingsclinic.com.

About ANCC’s Magnet Recognition Program

The Magnet Recognition Program — administered by the American Nurses Credentialing Center, the largest and most prominent nurses credentialing organization in the world — identifies health care organizations that provide the very best in nursing care and professionalism in nursing practice.

The Magnet Recognition Program serves as the gold standard for nursing excellence and provides consumers with the ultimate benchmark for measuring quality of care. For more information about the Magnet Recognition Program and current statistics, visit www.nursingworld.org/magnet.