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Unit, organizational examples of excellence sought In order for the MUSC Medical Center to earn national Magnet status for nursing excellence from the American Nurses Credentialing Center, writers of MUSC’s application must provide unit and organizational examples of excellence.     These examples exemplify how MUSC strives to support a healthy work environment, healthy nurses, and healthy patient outcomes necessary to achieve magnet status. Discharge Planning Education Project (Florence Simmons, R.N., Division of Care Management) Proactive discharge planning is the responsibility of all team members and is essential in identifying barriers and providing a safe and appropriate discharge for patients. Therefore, educating the team and providing them with assistance in discharge planning allows all staff to be held accountable for their role in discharge planning and implementing proactive discharge planning. Care Management developed several tools and in-services to increase the knowledge of discharge planning for their interdisciplinary team. A 45-minute PowerPoint presentation that highlights the essentials of discharge planning at MUSC was developed and is presented monthly at Clinical Services Orientation. Information cards describing the role of the care manager and the social worker at MUSC were developed and distributed to physicians and individual nursing units. The cards will be updated annually. A CATTs Competency for Discharge Planning for nurses and physicians was developed and should be available this year.    Because of staff education and planning initiatives, the staff is familiar with their role in proactive discharge planning, hospital lengths of stay as well as readmissions should decrease, in addition to increased satisfaction with MUSC’s discharge process for patients, their families, and staff. MUSC Discharge Planning Booklet (Florence Simmons, R.N., Division of Care Management) The patient and significant other play a pivotal role in discharge planning; however the stress of hospitalization and lack of knowledge of proactive discharge planning prevents them from actively participating in the process.    A booklet was developed to provide the patient and family members with information about the discharge planning process and to identify hospital and community resources that are available to assist in the process. This booklet was based on an award-winning discharge booklet that was developed by a team of New York Social Workers and was supported by a grant from Aetna Insurance co.  At MUSC a team of social workers and care managers met and developed a booklet that met the needs of the patients and family members of MUSC. The Education Department reviewed the booklet for level of reading comprehension and input was provided from family members of ICU patients. The booklet is now available to all patients and was awarded an MUSC YES Grant. Friday, July 8, 2005 Catalyst Online is published weekly, updated as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public Relations for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of South Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at 792-4107 or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to Catalyst Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to petersnd@musc.edu or catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Community Press at 849-1778.