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Christopher Parker, chief nursing
officer at Shore Health System, saw a need for collaborative decision-making
among staff nurses. To address this need, he created a Shared Leadership Global
Team—consisting of staff nurses in 2002. Parker thought the team would
help with retention efforts because participating nurses would feel more
involved as stakeholders within the health system. (Fall
2007)
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Patient
interaction is a reason many enter the field of nursing, but in today’s
health care environment nurses have to juggle multiple tasks and interacting
with patients unfortunately loses its importance. When Judy Brown, Senior Vice
President of Patient Care Services at Howard County General Hospital,
established the Volunteer Nurse Program in 2002 she was relying on those very
nurses who enjoyed spending time with patients. (Spring
2006)
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The
Baltimore Alliance for Careers in Healthcare (BACH), a nonprofit work force
development consortium that includes seven local hospitals, has chosen an
institution, the Maryland Center for Arts and Technology, a North Howard Street
training center already geared toward serving Baltimore’s unemployed or
underemployed, with which to partner in its effort to train unemployed workers
for health industry jobs. Through a 12-week bridge program, which began April
10, 2006, BACH intends to enhance the basic skills of workers with low level
reading and math abilities, helping them bridge the gap to new careers. In
turn, the hospitals hope to get more skilled workers for their hard-to-fill
positions. (Spring
2006)
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Ernestine Cosby, R.N., inpatient
unit director at Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital in Baltimore, was looking
for a way to recognize outstanding contributions to patient care. She noticed
that the annual hospital-wide recognition ceremony was a real morale booster.
From that, the idea to implement “Morale Teams” was born. (October
2005)
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The
GAIT program is funded by a University of Maryland System Redeployment Grant to
the Geriatrics and Gerontology Education and Research program at the University
of Maryland, Baltimore. The project is an opportunity for students to
experience rural health care first hand through clinical training, including:
the principles of interdisciplinary care, health care team skills,
interdisciplinary geriatric assessment of host site clients, presentation and
discussion of student team care plans, and interdisciplinary geriatric
assessment. (October
2005)
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Program
Manager Ann Roney found that the prevalence rate for pressure ulcers had risen
quite dramatically from previous years. Concerned for the health and welfare of
patients at the Hagerstown hospital, Roney developed the “Skin Snooper
Specialist” course, designed to train nursing assistants on how to
prevent, identify, and treat pressure ulcers. She knew that if nursing
assistants were taught what to look for, the problem would be greatly reduced.
An added bonus to the program is that it has enhanced the role of nursing
assistants while improving morale. (October
2005)
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Traditionally, concierge services
are provided by hotels to assist their guests with running errands or making
reservations and recommendations. But now workplaces, including some Maryland
hospitals, are attempting to improve employee satisfaction and retention by
offering concierge-type services to their employees-and many workers are happy
to save time on necessary but time-consuming errands such as car washing,
ordering flowers, or finding tickets to an event. (May 2005)
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The
Washington County Hospital System (WCHS), which has about 2,100 employees,
launched a service in 1996 for employees enrolled in its retirement program to
get independent, professional financial advice. Before the program began,
employees would sign up for their retirement plans or make changes to their
financial portfolios without professional advice. Many blindly made decisions
about money they plan to use in their golden years based on a hunch or with
limited information. (January
2005)
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Like
most hospital officials responsible for recruiting, Susan Coe, director of
human resources at Greater Baltimore Medical Center (GBMC) couldn’t figure
out why the hospital was struggling with luring nurses to the Towson-based
hospital and keeping them there. With a team of hospital officials, Coe
designed “Teamwork is Rewarding,” a program that uses existing nurses
to help retain new recruits. The program also provides an intense six-month
training academy for new recruits to help get them adjusted and prepared for
the job. “Teamwork is Rewarding” is designed to stabilize and reduce
turnover through the creation of a more stable work environment. (January 2005)
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For
years, Franklin Square Hospital Center in Baltimore employed nurse recruitment
strategies that they felt produced average results. So Ann Possidente, manager
of nurse recruitment and retention in collaboration with nursing management and
staff took the hospital’s recruitment strategy up a notch. After
brainstorming with other hospital nurses, they decided to launch a recruitment
and retention program that involved all nurses in the hospital. The idea sounds
simple but it ended up with a recruitment rate of 72 new nurses in five months.
(January 2005)
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When
Sheppard & Enoch Pratt Hospital clinical director Kay Sienkilewski heard
her nurses complaining about communication issues, she decided to step up and
reorganize. In February, the 322-bed psychiatric hospital, applied for magnet
status—a nationally recognized gold standard awarded to hospitals with the
best nursing management, philosophy, and practices. “When you’re
applying for magnet status, you assess all of your processes,” said
Sienkilewski. “When I assessed nurse input at our hospital, so much was
dependent on nursing managers.” (November 2004)
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Hospitals routinely go through
cyclical changes that create a need for supplemental staffing—opening new
units, nurses and other staff taking leave or vacation, to name a few. To
address hospitals’ concerns regarding the availability of quality
supplemental staff, the Maryland Hospital Association (MHA) searched for a
creative solution and developed the Chesapeake Registry Program. (November 2004)
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On a
monthly basis, Carla Halik, RN, who heads the Holy Cross Hospital Explorers
Program, invites as many as 42 teenage students to her work place to expose
them to various health careers in hopes of recruiting them. “Forty-two
teenagers is quite a handful,” she says, “especially when you’re
bringing them into a hospital.” When the program started 14 years ago, it
was often difficult to get staff to volunteer their time to take students on a
tour. Now Holy Cross Hospital has an Exceptional Contributions Pay Program that
incentivizes its employees to participate in the program. Halik reports that
today she has employees coming to her to find out how they can help. (November 2004)
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In one
of the few industries in the nation where positions outnumber applicants,
health care managers have to sell their organizations Donald Trump-style. With
little of the glitz and glamour of casinos and hotels, hospitals need managers
with tremendous creativity to attract and keep a corps of experienced staffers.
Enter Mary Towe, RN, MBA, executive for nursing services at Washington County
Hospital in Hagerstown. (September
2004)
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Today,
almost two years after the permanent night charge nurse on Greater Baltimore
Medical Center’s (GBMC) busy Post Partum unit took an extended leave, the
staff continues to cover the charge role. Sharing the charge nurse position is
“a leadership opportunity for every RN who’s in post partum,”
says clinical manager Etna Weinhold, who came up with the idea of rotating
charge nurses. The opportunity enhances the nurse “in terms of
professional development and in terms of thinking globally.” (Summer 2004)
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Nursing
leaders at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore are addressing the nursing shortage by
respecting the needs of nurses in an aging workforce. Through its Retired Nurse
Initiative, Sinai Hospital offers older nurses creative job options, allowing
them to remain in the workforce while enjoying their retirement years. (Summer 2004)
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Manual
scheduling and payroll once was an arduous, time-consuming job for nurses at
The Johns Hopkins Hospital. But that changed when the hospital added new
technology that Hopkins nurses expect will result in greater employee
satisfaction and time savings. (Summer
2004)
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One
lesson emerging from hospitals’ ongoing recruitment and retention efforts
is that unique job benefits can, over time, reduce turnover. . . . (February 2004)
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Calvert
Memorial’s new pay strategy is designed to address the unintended
consequences of the hospital’s efforts to close the nurse vacancy gap. . .
.
(February
2004)
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If you
think that town hall meetings with their grassroots approach to problem solving
happen only in small-town New England, please think again. . . . . (February 2004)
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If an
issue goes unaddressed, “New nurses may jump from hospital to hospital,
looking for something they may not find.” That is why Carroll County
General Hospital’s Leslie Simmons uses full-time mentors to coach new
nurses and answer their every question—quickly. (May 2003)
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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.” (May
2003)
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There is
more time for “management by walking around” in a small hospital,
which is a strength in forging team spirit and demonstrating clinical
excellence, says Garrett County’s Denise Liston. Highlighting the concept
has sharply reduced RN complaints—to zero. (July 2003)
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With the
beginning of the school year comes a challenge for both hospitals and those
employees who have children in elementary school: parents’ difficulty in
finding alternative child care when schools unexpectedly close for weather
emergencies often translates into difficulty in staffing hospitals. Doctors
Community Hospital in Prince George’s County has, however, found the
answer — or rather, created an answer. (September 2003)
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For two
and a half years, the Anne Arundel Medical Center has offered a
“shared” benefit to its Latino employees:the Medical Center
underwrites instruction costs and allows the employees to take the last half
hour of their work day twice a week to attend on-site “English as a Second
Language” (ESOL) classes. (September 2003)
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Brooks
McBurney and his human resources colleagues at Hagerstown’s Washington
County Hospital have come up with a creative answer to a basic complaint of
part-time hospital employees: If part-timers work more hours than they’re
scheduled for — which health care facilities often need them to do —
there may not be much of a reward in it for them. (September 2003)
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How
successful has Baltimore's Good Samaritan Hospital been in establishing a
"foundation of learning" as the organization's underlying culture? Remarkably
so, judging by director of Professional Development Stacey Brull's use of
"phones ringing off the hook" and "snowball effect" in describing the past
year's progress toward this goal. (November
2003)
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As vice
president for operations and Nuclear Medicine supervisor respectively, Bryan
Fick and Pat Novak knew they were faced with two big workforce challenges last
year as Mercy Medical Center acquired PET scanner technology to enhance its
diagnostic capabilities. The first was finding scarce PET-trained technologists
to perform and analyze the scans. The second was keeping current staff from
leaving during the stressful period when, beyond building a suite for the
scanner, the entire department was renovated. (November
2003)
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