Recruitment and Retention of the Most Qualified Nurses to Keep Up With a Clinics Growing Patient Population

Recruitment and Retention of the Most Qualified Nurses to Keep Up With a Clinics Growing Patient Population

Recruitment and retention of qualified nurses are critical to the growth and success of any organization. Following this, recruitment allows for the thorough identification of talented and qualified nurses who will comprise the team, and retention enables an organization to retain talented and qualified nurses in the long run. Subsequently, Primary care is critical in improving health outcomes and reducing mortality among all age groups. However, the provision of primary care is challenging because of the consistent shortages of employees, specifically nurses. The rapidly aging workforce is a significant contributor to the current situation in American healthcare, mainly because a majority of the labor force is fast approaching the age of 65. (Kueakomoldej, Turi, McMenamin, Xue, & Poghosyan, 2022). Furthermore, there is a slow replacement of individuals exiting the workforce, thus creating a gap. Consistently, the limited capacity of schools to accommodate and train more nurses aggravates the current gap. Other things held constant, this situation is expected to last as an estimated 1 million individuals are set to retire in the next decade (Atkins, 2020).

As the population grows older, the health situation in the country becomes urgent due to the lack of health. This creates a dire need for more healthcare workers to offer primary care to the growing and aging patient population. While the nursing vacancies are overwhelming around the country, retention is a challenge. Nurses seek out places with a work-life balance, manageable stress levels, and job satisfaction. In addition, the workload, need for better compensation, poor staffing ratio, and desire to advance career also contribute to the high turnover rates (Atkins, 2020). However, these are becoming hard to find in the current situation; thus, more qualified nurses are leaving the profession, making recruitment and retention challenging for healthcare organizations. According to a study conducted by Kronos, at least 98 percent of respondents who were nurses stated that their occupations were physically and mentally draining. Forty-four percent of these respondents highlighted a lack of appreciation by their managers, while 80 percent stated that they needed to find a physical, mental, and spiritual balance (Columbia Southern University, 2021).

Possible Solutions

Healthcare organizations are obliged to ensure that they hire and retain qualified nurses. Consequently, strategies that can help achieve this goal need to be adopted. These strategies include work improvement, culture reinforcement, and onboarding process improvement. To improve the work environment, healthcare organizations ought to understand the needs of the nurses in relation to their careers. This information can be obtained through exit interviews, one-on-one discussions, and organizational surveys. Some aspects that need improvement include better remuneration and benefits, flexible work schedules and shifts, and more effective reward systems (Columbia Southern University, 2021). These factors are expected to motivate the employees intrinsically and extrinsically while increasing their job satisfaction.

Subsequently, culture establishment and reinforcement can be achieved by ensuring that all employees are aware of the mission and vision. This approach will increase collaboration and commitment to the organization’s reason for existence. When employees are aware of the core values and their role or contribution towards the achievement of the goals, they tend to feel more significant to the entity. Thus, communication of these core values and ensuring alignment with personal values will likely create a culture that the nurses feel part of and identify with, hence retaining them longer. (Columbia Southern University, 2021).

Organizations use the onboarding process to integrate new hires into the entity. This process of integration is important because it helps new employees familiarize themselves with the entity, understand their role, and gain skills and knowledge that are important for the role. Improvement of this process is important in ensuring that employees receive feedback on their performance periodically as well as support for enhancement (Columbia Southern University, 2021). Conclusively, these three solutions focus on an organization’s internal activities, which is critical because there is only so much a single entity can do about the countrywide shortage of workers. Thus, improving the internal process related to hiring and retention will significantly lower the turnover rates.

References

Atkins, T. (2020). 5 Factors Impacting the Nursing Shortage. Retrieved from https://healthstaff.org/5-factors-impacting-the-nursing-shortage/

Recruitment and retention in health care. Columbia Southern University. (2021). https://www.columbiasouthern.edu/blog/blog-articles/2021/january/recruitment-and-retention-in-healthcare/

Kueakomoldej, S., Turi, E., McMenamin, A., Xue, Y., & Poghosyan, L. (2022). Recruitment and Retention of Primary Care Nurse Practitioners in Underserved Areas: A Scoping Review. Nurs Outlook, 70(3), 401-416.

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Choose one topic from the following Possible Course Project Topics:
Discuss how you would improve cash flow, given the CFO does not have enough cash on hand to pay operating bills in a timely manner.
Assess the best options for improving a healthcare facility’s return on investment, and discuss the risk associated with each type of investment.

Determine how to recruit and retain the most qualified nurses in order to keep up with a clinic’s growing patient population.
Determine how you will calculate the capital needed to replace the hospital facility itself and how the funds will be raised to accomplish this.
Assess various fundraising opportunities for healthcare facilities. What is the best approach, depending on the facility type, to secure financial resources to advance the goals of the healthcare facility and further enhance the quality of programs offered?
Assignment: A summary of the topic you have chosen for the Course Project and its importance in the healthcare industry. The length of the outline should be approximately 1-2 pages in length, and include the following:
Identify the topic you will be writing about.
Define the problem that you will be trying to suggest a solution for.
Identify possible solutions.