What Turn-over Rate Should We Expect With Registered Nurses? - Science Daily

"A shortage of 340,000 RNs is projected by 2020," said Christine Kovner, PhD, RN, FAAN, professor at New York University College of Nursing and lead author of the study. "Therefore, it is vital that we understand the factors that promote the retention of newly-licensed RNs as well as factors that lead to the high turnover rates among them. We plan to continue surveying these RNs for two more years and develop predictive models of turnover, based on our findings." More than 84% of respondents worked in a hospital inpatient setting. Those whose first professional degree was an associate's degree (58.1%) were more intent on leaving their jobs than those whose first professional degree was a bachelor's degree (37.6%). Among those newly-licensed RNs who had already left their first job (n=610), the most common reasons cited were poor management (41.8%), stressful work conditions (37.2%) and wanting to get experience in a different clinical area (34.1%).

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For most part the healthcare industry has refused to look at high turnover rates and there underlying cause as a reason for nursing shortage. Instead they continously site demographics and new career opportunities for women and petiton elected officials for more immigration. They are concerned only with labor cost and retention efforts are seen as increasing labor cost. I have a little suggestion. Increase unit budgets, then make orientation cost for new workers come out of the unit budget just like wages and benefits do. Right now orientation cost at most hospital come out of a budget that is separate from the unit budget. This fuels the nurse managers cavalier attituted towards established workers and turnover. It even assists them in unseating senior staff nurses who happen to be higher paid nurses. I have witness with my own eyes managers push out majority of experienced nurses and then replaced them with GNs that make $10 less and hour. They then came in well under budget and got a pat on the back for their efforts. Every unit has a few yes men, people who tell the manager everything she/he wants to hear and are totally into the company. A few of these are kept around to smooth the transition of the new grads. The nurses that are ejected are invarably the people who point out problems and who are strong patient advocates. Anyway, what I really wanted to say is that the healthcare industry refuses to look at retention but other are doing it for them.