Looking to Attract and Retain Top Nursing Talent? Here’s How.

April 1, 2021
April 1, 2021

It is no secret in healthcare that transitioning to practice can be extremely difficult for new nurse graduates. In fact, it can be so difficult that many new nurses leave within just a year or two of beginning their new careers. Perceived gaps between what nurses have learned in nursing school and what they see in actual practice can result in a bit of a shock and can leave many of them feeling as if they are unprepared for the rigors of their profession. The right residency program can help them understand that this is normal and even help prepare them for when it does happen.

The Case for Better Retention Tools

  • In 2018, the turnover rate for bedside nurses was 17.2%. Moreover, in 2018, 27.7% of nurses who quit their jobs did so within the first year, and 48% did so within the first two years. These numbers, combined with the 60,000 nurses that will retire each year for the foreseeable future, means that healthcare organizations will need to rely heavily on new graduates to fill critical nursing positions. Tools to help stem the tide of nurses who leave their jobs within the first two years will be important to help healthcare organizations fill these critical roles and avoid the significant costs associated with nurse turnover.

Early Intervention – Support Retention by Equipping New Nurses

The significant percentage of new graduates that leave their jobs within the first year or two of practice speaks to the importance of nurse residency programs. The number of residency programs has increased substantially in recent years, showing that healthcare organization are already embracing the practice. Whether your program has been in existence for 10 years or is still in the most nascent of stages, it can be a great retention tool for new graduates. Structured residency programs can reduce new nurse turnover, increasing both nurse and patient satisfaction while also decreasing risk.

Successful Onboarding

As an aging population, a wave of retiring nurses, and a pandemic simultaneously contribute to the ongoing and increasing need for nurses, it becomes even more critical that the process by which new graduate nurses transition to practice works—for the new nurse and for the healthcare organization. HealthStream’s Nurse Residency Solution starts by assessing knowledge and critical thinking and then creates a plan that is unique to each nurse that will not just help build skills, but also address behaviors and judgement that can create the confidence that will help nurses transition to practice successfully.

HealthStream has partnered with IBM Watson and created JaneTM—the first assessment that addresses critical thinking and judgement in combination with a nurse’s baseline knowledge. Assessments are available in specific areas of care and can identify the gaps in knowledge and then create an individualized learning program in just a few minutes. The content is automated, but highly personalized, and can be adapted to multiple learning modalities.

Building Retention by Creating Lifelong Learners

Training that is customized to the learner is critical, but your work is not necessarily done if you really want to create a lifelong learner. Nurses using HealthStream’s Nurse Residency Solution will be able to learn theory and best practices via interactive e-learning, apply that learning via on-screen simulations, and stay in touch with the latest evidence-based best practices.

Building Retention by Building Community

You may have already observed that millennials and Gen Z’ers and plenty of older people willingly engage in on-line communities—both personal and professional. HealthStream’s Nurse Residency Solution has a private residency community that is designed to support new nurses with everything from schedules and announcements to document sharing and discussion boards. It can also foster the kinds of networking and peer relationships that can make a critical difference to new nurse graduates in terms of both peer support and organizational enculturation.

Since culture plays a significant role in the success of any Nurse Residency program, our resources are molded around your organization’s DNA, boosting your reputation as an employer of choice.

Click here to find out how our proven Nurse Residency tools can help you sustainably reduce nursing turnover.