This past week’s Nursing Show covered a recent news story on how “Happy Hospitals = Happy Patients.” This story referred to a recent study on patient satisfaction and successful hospital programs. While it might seem an obvious solution to nurse staffing issues, why don’t more facilities attempt similar initiatives?
It seems that many hospitals have instituted what can only be called a revolving door policy where they constantly spend extra resources throwing new and inexperienced nurses into difficult and possibly dangerous positions with little to no support. These new nurses quit their jobs and move on rapidly, leaving the hospitals to spend more money and resources hiring and orienting more new nurses.
Wasted Nursing Resources
As more and more states report on increased nursing shortages, fewer student resources for nursing students, and not enough nursing faculty, why are hospitals not treating their nursing staff as a valuable limited resource? Hospital overcrowding is getting worse and not better.
More patients will need inpatient nursing care as the population continues to age and more people will use emergency departments as primary care because of lost medical benefits due to the recession. The need for more nurses is still increasing despite the efforts of nursing schools to take in and train new nurses. There is clearly a need for programs to increase educational resources and mentoring online.
Nurse Mentoring Programs
This article from from the AP wire out of Jacksonville looks at high turnover rates for new nurses in U.S. hospitals. However, all is not lost. Many facilities are working hard to create programs to retain both new and existing nurses with mentoring, additional training and support, and through programs with local nursing school programs.
These retention programs are not free, some costing $5,000 or more per new nurse. That cost may seem too much for some facilities’ bottom line. When compared to the cost of recruiting and training a new nurse and increased staffing costs while finding a replacement, estimated at up to $50,000. The trade off seems to be obvious but many hospitals are too focused on the short term bottom line issues.
Student and New Nurse Study Aids
Here at the Nursing Show, we are working towards providing similar programs with our NursingTopStudent.com site. Nursing Top Student has free resources for site visitors and special members-only content that focuses on a modular approach to learning and studying nursing education materials.
With nearly 200 files and study aids on the site already and more being added weekly, the Nursing Top Student site is one way for new and student nurses to refresh and retain the knowledge they need to meet with success in their studies and workplaces. Take advantage of a SPECIAL offer and get a 7 day sneak peak at the Nursing Top Student site’s member resources for just 99¢. Click Here Now!
