Tipton’s Nursing Connections Newsletter

Nothing makes us prouder than sharing the news of our nursing partners earning the recognition they so richly deserve. Their dedication and perseverance, the daily work of delivering nursing excellence, is what these designations honor. Join us in celebrating partners who’ve recently achieved their ANCC Magnet^® and ANCC Pathway to Excellence^® Designations. 

Site Visit Strategy
Top 5 Tips to Prepare for Your
ANCC Magnet^® Site Visit

You’ve made it to your site visit, now make it perfect. These five tips come straight from Tipton Health, with a 100% success rate preparing nursing teams for the ANCC Magnet appraiser site visit.

1. Know Your Sources of Evidence Cold: All nurses and leaders should be able to speak to the SOEs relevant to their roles. This isn’t just the responsibility of the Magnet Program Director. Conduct unit-level rehearsals, so staff can confidently explain outcomes, innovations, and examples of shared governance in action without scrambling for a binder. 
2. Coach Nurses on Storytelling, Not Scripting: Appraisers are trained to spot rehearsed, robotic answers. Prepare your team to share authentic, specific stories about how they’ve driven change at the bedside. Use the STAR format (Situation, Task, Action, Result) to help nurses frame their real experiences with confidence. (Tipton Health clients can find a STAR template in the Resources section of Tipton Direct.) 
3. Validate Your Data & Then Validate It Again: Appraisers will cross-reference your nurse-sensitive outcome data, NDNQI benchmarks, and any metrics cited in your written document. Ensure every data point is current, accurate, and traceable. Discrepancies between the written document and what’s presented during the visit are a major red flag. 
4. Align your CNO and Leadership Team on Messaging: Appraisers meet separately with executives, managers, and staff. Inconsistent messaging between leadership levels is a common pitfall. Ensure your CNO, directors, and charge nurses are aligned on organizational priorities, the Nursing Strategic Plan, shared governance structures, and the story of nursing’s impact across the organization. 
5. Conduct a Mock Site Visit with Real Scrutiny: Engage with Tipton Health for a mock site visit (MSV) to role-play the appraiser experience. During the MSV, we will tour the units, conduct mock interviews, and review your environment of care with fresh eyes. Issues that your team has stopped noticing will stand out immediately to a visitor. You will then be able to close the remaining gaps.  

To schedule a mock site visit with Tipton Health, contact Michael Tipton at michael@tiptoncommunicaitons.com. 

OO7, Caregiving Advocacy
Policies & Procedures

OO7, OO8, and OO9 are part of your Organization Overview, the policies (or equivalent evidence) showing how your organization protects staff, patients, and families, and how nurses can voice concerns. This issue’s Coaching Corner zeroes in on OO7 and the five policy categories we recommend organizing your evidence around.

OO7 – Caregiving Advocacy Policies & Procedures 

In this OO, we are looking to demonstrate that your organization has policies and procedures in place to ensure the rights of staff. For expedience, we recommend only providing the policies themselves, rather than large documents like the employee handbook. We also advise against attaching things like flyers or web page screenshots, as they are typically undated and often do not provide the level of detail appraisers are looking for. We advise dividing your staff-related policies into the following five categories for this OO.  

1. Caregiver Well-Being: In this category, our goal is to demonstrate that the organization is doing the “right thing” by its caregivers and staff. We recommend including policies on employee assistant programs, personal leaves of absence or bereavement, jury duty, or on-the-job spiritual support or other ways to cope with loss. This category may also include procedures for staff breaks, paid time off, debrief after a critical incident, etc.  
2. Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Rights: This category aims to demonstrate the organization’s policies to accommodate staff diversity and rights. We recommend providing policies and procedures related to equal employment opportunity, reasonable accommodations for disability, and family/military leave. This category may also include policies related to conflicts of care related to cultural, religious, or ethical beliefs of the employee, worker’s compensation, or LGBTQ+ healthcare policies.  
3. Confidentiality: We recommend one policy for this category that demonstrates the organization’s assurance that employee personal records (and patient records if an employee becomes a patient) are confidential/private.  
4. Care for the Impaired Practitioner: In this category, we recommend one policy that guides managers/supervisors on what to do if they suspect that an employee is impaired by drugs or alcohol.  
5. Zero Tolerance for Bullying, Incivility, and Workplace Violence: Here, we recommend providing the organization’s workplace violence policy. We may also include policies related to a harassment-free workplace.  

Product Update
Tipton Direct Gets Smarter.
Two New Features to Help You Work More Efficiently.

Managing your Magnet® document submission is no small task, and we are always looking for ways to make the process clearer and less stressful for our clients. We are pleased to announce two new enhancements to Tipton Direct that put more control in your hands. 

If you’ve ever logged into Tipton Direct and noticed that the total number of document examples appears higher than your required submission total of 93, you’re not alone. Tipton Direct displays all available options for each document, which can make the total seem higher than what you actually need to submit. 

For example, TL9 includes five options (A through E), but you are only required to submit two. 

To make this easier, a new icon has been added to the Actions column in the Document Management section. This feature allows you to quickly mark any unused options. Simply click the red circle with a line through it to exclude the options you are not using. 

A Better Way to Track Your Progress 

We have also added a new project management tool to the Magnet Docs section. When you have reviewed a document and determined it is complete, you can now mark it as “ANCC Ready.” This is entirely your call. This feature is designed to put that decision where it belongs: with you. 

Once marked, those documents will appear as a filter option in your status reports and will feed directly into the Overall Magnet Document Progress Bar on the Magnet Overview page, giving your team a real-time view of where things stand. 

As always, reach out to Aimee Porter with any questions about Tipton Direct at aimee@tiptonhealth.com. 

Spotlight
The Emergency Nurses Association Lantern Award

The Lantern Award is specific to emergency departments (EDs) and awarded by the Emergency Nurses Association (ENA). The award recognizes and exemplifies exceptional ED practice in areas including leadership, practice, education, advocacy, and research. The award is open to all EDs completing the online application. Upon successful designation, the award period lasts for three years. Tipton Health can help you tell the story of your ED and have the strongest case possible for achieving the ENA Lantern Award. 

The Lantern Award Application 

The Lantern Award application covers five core areas, in addition to completing the Team version of the ANCC’s Healthy Work Environment Assessment and reporting the participation rate and score as part of the application. The five core areas covered include: 

1. Leadership – Practice: This area focuses on qualities of your ED leadership that foster confidence, professional pride, and a community of support for ED nurses. This includes an example of how shared governance has affected change in the ED nursing practice, descriptions of ED nurse recognition, an example of nurse-physician collaboration, and more.  
2. Leadership – Operations: The Operations area is focused on how the ED operates as a whole and includes exploring metrics such as patient flow, patient satisfaction, triage, and patient safety.  
3. Education: This area seeks to demonstrate that the ED maintains nurse education as a continued, structured, and organizationally supported commitment. Some metrics included in this area are the average number of paid educational hours for a single ED nurse over the most recent year, the percentage of nurses holding each level of education (diploma, associate, baccalaureate, master’s, and doctorate), as well as descriptions of how the department approaches education.  
4. Advocacy: This area includes advocacy for ED patients, vulnerable members of the community, ED nurses and professionals, and even the future of emergency care. In this context, advocacy is more than following existing protocols for specific patient populations and asks departments to show how they advocate in partnership with their communities and in legislative arenas.   
5. Research – Practice: This is the most data-driven area of the Lantern Application that asks departments to demonstrate how they integrate principles from the ENA Emergency Nursing Scope and Standards of Practice, describe quality improvement work and how it has advanced practice, provide comprehensive graphs of clinical performance indicators, and more.  

The next available time to apply for the Lantern Award is the 2027 cycle. This application becomes available on November 18, 2026, with a submission deadline of February 24, 2027.  

Contact Us 

Our writing team can help you navigate the Lantern Award application process and ensure that you are telling the strongest possible story about your ED to make your case for the award. We will work with you every step of the way to prompt your team for any missing information, explain what is needed, and guide you on exactly where your information belongs in the narrative to demonstrate your accomplishments. Reach out to learn more: https://tiptonhealth.com/contact-us/.  

Key Reference:  

Emergency Nurses Association. Coaching guide for the lantern award application emergency nurses association. (n.d.). https://www.ena.org/sites/default/files/2025-11/Coaching%20Guide_Cycle%2016_v.2.pdf 

On Demand
2025 & 2026 Webinar Recap

Our goal with our Nursing Leadership webinar series is to create a transformative era in nurse leadership by helping nurse leaders improve their own work environments and achieve their visions and goals. Below are some of our webinars from 2025 and 2026 thus far. Remember that you can earn 1.0 contact hours by completing the survey provided at the end of each webinar, and there is no cost to register for Tipton Health Webinars.  

Earn Contact Hours for Webinars 

The Future of Nursing Leadership Is Being Written Right Now. Are You Part of It? 

Originally recorded live on April 29, 2026, the webinar is now available on demand for your convenience. The speaker for this webinar is Maureen White, RN, MBA, NEA-BC, FNAP, FAAN, senior executive advisor, Northwell Health, one of the most accomplished nursing executives in the United States. With nearly 50 years at Northwell Health, New York State’s largest private employer, Maureen rose from a registered nurse in the ICU to system chief nursing officer, overseeing 28 hospitals and more than 1,000 ambulatory sites. 

The conversation, moderated by Christine Reeves, director of strategic communications, Tipton Health, explores how nursing leadership must evolve to meet the challenges ahead, what it takes to build high-performing teams, and the workforce strategies that produced measurable results at Northwell Health.  

Objectives: At the completion of the webinar, the learner will be able to: 

• Understand how nursing leadership must evolve to meet future workforce and care challenges 
• Apply strategic, collaborative leadership principles to advance to the next level 
• Develop a personal plan to lead with vision, trust, and impact 

Igniting Joy and Agility: Transforming Nursing Leadership  

Originally aired on November 13, 2025, this webinar is available on demand and inspires nurse executives to lead with clarity, advocacy, and trust. The panelists Melissa A. Fitzpatrick, MSN, RN, FAAN, president, Kirby Bates Associates, and Tanya Carmichael, PhD, RN, RNC-OB, director of Nursing Excellence Consulting, Tipton Health, share evidence-based strategies to cultivate joy, gratitude, and agility in leadership. Participants will explore how mission-driven, joyful leadership strengthens resilience, builds healthier workplace cultures, and accelerates both personal growth and organizational excellence in today’s complex healthcare environment. 

Objectives: 

At the completion of the webinar, the learner will be able to: 

• Explain how joy and agility enhance nurse leaders’ effectiveness and resilience. 
• Apply strategies for cultivating gratitude and purpose to strengthen workplace culture. 
• Identify leadership behaviors that build trust and advance mission-driven practice. 
• Implement practical tools to promote leadership growth and organizational excellence. 

Creating Safe Workplaces for Nurses and Healthcare Workers 

Now available on demand, this webinar details how Memorial Hermann Health System nurse leaders, clinicians, security teams, and hospital leaders joined forces to create a safer hospital work environment. With panelists Eric Sean Clay, vice president of Security Services, Memorial Hermann Health System, and Leah Blackwell, MSN, MBA, RN, NEA-BCVP, vice president and chief nursing officer, Memorial Hermann Hospital-Texas Medical Center, leaners will 

• Understand the impact of workplace violence on nurses and clinicians 
• Gain practical insights into the development of comprehensive workplace violence prevention plans. 
• Learn from real-life outcomes at Memorial Hermann Health System. 
• Develop strategies that will work in various healthcare settings to protect nurses from workplace violence.