Strategies to Improve Resource Availability for New Graduate Nurses in a Critical Care Setting

STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE RESOURCE AVAILABILITY FOR NEW GRADUATE NURSES Due to changes in the employment arena, health care organizations are hiring new graduate RNs into acute care. At an academic tertiary medical center, new hires typically are assigned into a night shift, which traditionally has less resource availability. The results of a recent AHRQ hospital survey on patient culture safety demonstrated that new graduates were feeling unsupported and that patient safety could be potentially compromised. A team of caregivers developed several goals to provide increased support, encouragement and education to night shift new hires. Improvement in overall patient care and safety was an additional objective. A root cause analysis was conducted and the results prompted the creation of night shift resource nursing position. Expectations for this position were delineated followed by recruitment and training. Subsequent tracking demonstrated a marked increase in the percentage of availability of this designated nurse over a period of 6 months, approaching the goal of 100%. Next steps include repeating the AHRG hospital survey as well as to sustain and spread concept