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New Munroe, FL Nurses Learn on the Job
Ocala Star-Banner
June 30, 2009
“When we go on the floor in a few weeks, we’ll have a very good foundation,” she said recently, during an afternoon training focused on one of the hospitals’ IV pumps.
The program became possible by a $30,000 Employed Worker Training grant from CLM Workforce.
Designed by Gifford and Cathy Reed, the two nurses in charge of workforce development at Munroe, the nurse residency program has four phases.
During the first phase, which lasts eight weeks, the nurses spend time as a group in various units, meet the physicians and staff, have courses, and get trained on the hospital’s equipment.
During the second eight to 10-week phase, they are matched with a unit and begin their training.
The nurses then go through a professional transition in the third phase, and after starting their practice they enter the fourth phase, during which they meet with their mentors monthly for 18 months.
“The program creates societal belonging,” said O’Connor, because the nurses start as a group and stay together for several weeks. “And lowering the stress level, increases retention. Through this program, they know that they’re not alone.”
The addition of the 17 new nurses comes at the heels of another round of hiring by Munroe during which 17 other new graduate nurses were hired. But that group went through the hospital’s traditional 8 to 10-week orientation program, which is based in individual units.
The hospital has been looking to fill nursing positions, some of which opened after it eliminated the traveling nurses program to save more than $1 million annually. Traveling nurses are usually twice as expensive.
The hospital still has around 20 nursing positions open.
Munroe officials said that they hope to continue the new nurse residency program for future new hires, and that they can fund the training even if they don’t get a grant.
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