transition program

am wondering what others are doing for orienting those to acute care that are new grads and/or nurses with limited acute care skills? Our dept has gone corporate wide and are limited in the access of instructors to the clinical area on a day to day basis. We have been using preceptors for orientation in thepast and still believe that is the way to go....but our preceptors have alwasy carried a regular pt load, been charge etc. in addition to having orientees. Our pt acuity is going up as is the numberof beds we need (an odd thing now a days i agree). So we think our dilemma is convincing the fiscal powers to be to support the preceptor model better, but putting some $ into extra staff when preceptors have orientees. The VP and nurse managers solution is to hire a clinical instructor to do the orientation for however many weeks that takes. So am wondering what others are doing oout there. Be interested in hearing from ou. Thanks

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