Keeping New Nurses -- Tools to Live By

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

found at medscape nurses today

selection from: [color=#004c88]highlights of the national association of neonatal nurses 22nd annual conference

keeping new nurses -- tools to live by

march 2007

beginning the orientation

derenda hodge, rn, msn, and eric sullivan, rn, msn, both from vanderbilt children's hospital, nashville, tennessee, arrived at the national association of neonatal nurses conference in nashville with tool belts on and ready for work. their project? "creating a successful rn orientation and residency program in the nicu."[1]

their 78-bed neonatal intensive care unit (nicu) was experiencing the same woes as many us units -- anticipating an increasing nursing shortage, ever-rising costs, too few rns graduating to fill needs, a large turnover in graduate rns within the first year and 21% turnover in rns overall, concomitant burnout and exhaustion in staff, increased patient care errors, and a replacement cost that, in some places, is approaching $100,000 per nurse. in response to this adrenaline-inducing list of horrors, hodge and sullivan developed an orientation and residency program specifically developed to stop turnover in its tracks.

the speakers' goal was to standardize learning, and davidson remarked that this type of program allows experts to standardize education for the whole community -- in this case, an entire children's hospital.[2] beyond tools, though, the presenters continually touched on the human side of orientation -- having get-acquainted lunches with new nurses, posting pictures and biographies of newly hired staff so that other nurses get to "know" them, and continually letting orientees know how they're doing -- feedback to the "nth" degree.

as anyone reading this bb knows, new grads repeatedly state not getting timely feedback they need.