City Research Online

Abstract

Background:
Descriptive studies have documented high hospital nurse burnout and turnover but there are few, if any, large-scale evaluations of organizational interventions to improve clinician retention. The Magnet model is an organizational hospital intervention associated with better clinician and patient outcomes but there is insufficient evidence as to whether the Magnet model based on structural empowerment of clinicians results in better outcomes or rewards hospitals with good work environments, and whether the Magnet model can be implemented at scale outside the United States.

Objective:
To evaluate whether Magnet4Europe—a multiyear organizational intervention of European hospitals—could be implemented and would result in improvements in nurse well-being, care quality, and patient safety.

Design:
Quasi-experimental longitudinal evaluation of 56 European intervention hospitals in 6 countries. Hospital-level implementation of the intervention measured by changes (from baseline to follow-up) in 77 Magnet model intervention targets. Outcome measures (eg, nurse burnout, intent to leave, quality of care, patient safety) were derived from surveys of nurses (4546 nurses at baseline; 3171 at follow-up).

Findings:
Hospitals that implemented intervention targets during the study period observed reductions in nurse burnout, nurses’ intentions to leave their jobs, and unfavorable care quality. Each 10-percentage-point increase in intervention target implementation was associated with 2.7%-point reduction in nurses who intend to leave (β −2.66; 95% CI: −4.74, −0.58, P0.05). Hospitals which implemented more than 25% of intervention targets observed 6.3%-point reduction in nurse burnout, 7.6%-point reduction in intent to leave, 6.4%-point reduction in unfavorable care quality, and 3.7%-point reduction in unfavorable patient safety. Improvements in hospital percentages of nurses reporting staffing adequacy were associated with reductions in burnout, intentions to leave, unfavorable care quality, and patient safety.

Conclusion:
Successful implementation of Magnet4Europe demonstrates promise for international adoption at scale of Magnet as an organizational intervention for improving clinician well-being, care quality, and patient safety.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Copyright © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives License 4.0 (CCBY-NC-ND), where it is permissible to download and share the work provided it is properly cited. The work cannot be changed in any way or used commercially without permission from the journal.
Publisher Keywords:	hospital; clinician; wellbeing; burnout
Subjects:	R Medicine > RT Nursing
Departments:	School of Health & Medical Sciences School of Health & Medical Sciences > Department of Nursing & Midwifery
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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