 Sinai Hospital and Foreign
Nurse Recruitment: Getting Beyond “Stealing” Nurses
In talking to Vice President for Patient Care Services Diane
Johnson about Sinai Hospital’s foreign nurse recruitment effort, you get
the distinct impression that she is a resilient person. That’s because
after a conversation about her Philippine recruitment experience—a
conversation that describes “aggravation, pain, and heartache” and an
“emotional roller coaster”—she ends on an upbeat note: “For
us, it was time well spent.”
Johnson explains that she suggested her hospital try
recruiting foreign nurses because she got tired of the competitive
“how-can-I-make-my-opportunity-more-attractive” strategy that
hospitals were using to steal nurses from the next facility—a strategy
Johnson candidly admits she has used herself. With executive management
support, she identified a small recruitment agency and assembled a team of
three directors and a Human Resources nurse recruiter to go to the Philippines
in December 2000. The team consulted both clinical and administrative experts
to craft a list of screening questions for interviews—for example,
“If you had a patient that presented with xyz symptoms, how would you
handle it?”
An abundant supply—and a lengthy process
The recruiting team found the Philippine nurses well
prepared and the number wanting to come to the U.S. abundant—driven partly
by a Philippine over-supply of nurses. The team contracted with just over 160
nurses, with a three-year term of commitment contingent on obtaining a visa and
license, and subject to hospital employee rules and regulations.
While the original plan was to have the nurses obtain their
license before coming to the U.S., that did not always work out in practice;
Sinai now allows those that need to, to take the test here. Nurses must pass
the Test of Spoken English before obtaining a visa and their Maryland license:
a tough hurdle, with a 50 percent failure rate.
The first Philippine nurses started arriving in small groups
early in 2002; so far 56 are working at Sinai, and, with a switch to a larger
recruiting agency, the hospital is committed to speeding up the process and
bringing the remaining 50 here (the lengthy wait has had an attrition rate).
Johnson and her staff used the time before the nurses’
arrival to lay groundwork: among other steps, they conducted the equivalent of
an in-service program for front-line staff to educate them on Philippine
culture. Johnson made a particular point of educating herself on training for
nurses in the Philippines—all bachelor’s prepared, their education is
similar to that in the U.S.—and then meeting with small groups of
physicians to describe competency level and hear concerns. At the same time,
Sinai kept in touch with their Philippine recruits, supplying background
information on the U.S. and Baltimore as well as clinical and cultural
information about the hospital.
Sinai’s Director of Patient Care Services for
Medical-Surgical Services, Linda LaHart, and Director of Patient Care Services
for Cardiac Services, Valerie Allen, took on key roles in helping the nurses
adjust once they had arrived. LaHart watches over their cultural and clinical
needs and Allen helps them settle into (and move on from) the apartments the
hospital provides for their first three months.
Meeting objectives—including physician approval
With only a few bumps, the Philippine nurses are melding
smoothly into the staff. “They are pleasant and competent,” notes
Johnson. “The one over-arching issue is they need more coaching in
technology than U.S.-trained nurses; Philippine hospital technology is
typically several generations back.”
There are early signs that Sinai’s foreign recruitment
effort is meeting its objectives: vacancy, turnover, and agency use rates are
all declining. And there are signs of physician satisfaction, says Johnson,
citing a recent encounter with a surgeon, who told her: “Diane,
that’s one of the best things Sinai has ever done.”
Of course, being a resilient and realistic person, Johnson
knows that physicians will move on to other issues.
Contact:
Diane Johnson
Vice President
Patient Care Services
Sinai Hospital of Baltimore
2401 W Belvedere Ave.
Baltimore MD 21215
Phone: 410-601-5131 Text
only version
|
