Nurse Retention

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I am interested in hearing ideas that positively impact nurse retention. What is and is not working?

Mijourney

1,301 Posts

Hi,

In my opinion, positives would be and are either proven or proving themselves to work are:

1. Cutting the salaries of hospital and health care executives.

2. Decreasing the growth of for profit health and medical services thereby decreasing the need to cater to investors. (Yes, this may hurt me as an investor in a retirement plan, but I'm willing to suffer if it means I can have a better working environment and peace of mind).

3. Paying frontline workers more as a result of #1 and #2.

4. Reestablishing the Baylor program.

5. Focusing on inpatient and outpatient health prevention, promotion, and education programs while reducing the over-reliance on pharmaceuticals and advanced technology. (Increasing med use, increases potential for errors).

6. Keeping patients who probably could be considered ICU patients in ICU with good staffing unless or until the nurse/patient ratio on the floor is reduced.

7. Making sure that a pre-admission and/or home health nurse is assigned for elective admissions, and a case manager, discharge planner and/or home health nurse is assigned to every inpatient and outpatient hospital case during the entire hospital stay. (I'm partial to home health for some reason).

8. Encouraging nurses to join a nursing association whether it is unionized or not.

9. Establishing one educational level as entry level for RNs with mandatory continuing education requirements for every state in the U.S. (You know I had to throw that in).

oramar

5,758 Posts

Originally posted by Mijourney:

Hi,

In my opinion, positives would be and are either proven or proving themselves to work are:

1. Cutting the salaries of hospital and health care executives.

2. Decreasing the growth of for profit health and medical services thereby decreasing the need to cater to investors. (Yes, this may hurt me as an investor in a retirement plan, but I'm willing to suffer if it means I can have a better working environment and peace of mind).

3. Paying frontline workers more as a result of #1 and #2.

4. Reestablishing the Baylor program.

5. Focusing on inpatient and outpatient health prevention, promotion, and education programs while reducing the over-reliance on pharmaceuticals and advanced technology. (Increasing med use, increases potential for errors).

6. Keeping patients who probably could be considered ICU patients in ICU with good staffing unless or until the nurse/patient ratio on the floor is reduced.

7. Making sure that a pre-admission and/or home health nurse is assigned for elective admissions, and a case manager, discharge planner and/or home health nurse is assigned to every inpatient and outpatient hospital case during the entire hospital stay. (I'm partial to home health for some reason).

8. Encouraging nurses to join a nursing association whether it is unionized or not.

9. Establishing one educational level as entry level for RNs with mandatory continuing education requirements for every state in the U.S. (You know I had to throw that in).

Excuse me but what is the Baylor Program?

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Trauma Columnist

traumaRUs, MSN, APRN

88 Articles; 21,249 Posts

Specializes in Nephrology, Cardiology, ER, ICU.

Just had to throw my two cents in here.

Baylor plan is a weekend program where you (usually) work 24 hours on the weekend and get paid for 40 hours with benefits. I loved people who worked weekends. For those of us who didn't want to the program was great.

Now as to incentives:

1. More money. Here in central IL we have compression. What this means, according to our nurse exec. is that a nurse with ten years experience makes $2.50 hour above what a new grad makes. YIPES

2. Rewarding people who don't call in or are willing to do overtime. I have had my present job (ER) for over four years. I haven't called in, been late during that time. I also volunteer for OT and sometimes will come in when asked -like for a last minute absentee.

3. A thank you would even be a great way to start.

4. Our facility does do WOW awards. Unfortunately they keep track of them and I'm sure this will reflect on our performance reports. I was on nights for 3 1/2 yrs and received few WOWs, but suddenly on days, I get them a lot. Its an inner city, not for profit hospital where the tougher clientele come in at night. However, management refuses to see this.

Even though I've listed several ways to improve retention, I still am not out actively searching because I like my job. So, maybe you can't have it both ways. Good luck.

bunky, BSN, RN

187 Posts

You guys!!! No one has mentioned SAFE/SANE STAFFING! Hire enough staff and you'll have no problems keeping them. On the lighter side: how about patients from a nursing home who are diagnosed in the ER with fecal impaction are sent back to the nursing home for the enemas to clear? I worked in a nursing home, and I seem to recall that we did enemas there occassionally. It just seems like such a huge waste of resources to admit a patient for this reason!

OC_An Khe

1,018 Posts

Specializes in Critical Care,Recovery, ED.
Originally posted by corrina1:

I am interested in hearing ideas that positively impact nurse retention. What is and is not working?

It's really very simple. RN's will stay and others will gravitate to the facilities that give them the 3 R's,namely Recognition, Respect and Reward commensurate with their professional responsibilities.

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