Dixie Regional Medical Center
| Dixie Regional Medical Center Nurse Internship Program Results in New Hires, Better RN Retention, Increased Committment, Lower Costs, and Fewer Errors Patricia Hansen, Internship Hiring Manager, explains how Dixie Regional Medical Center achieved this success. | |
| What challenge did you face or what process did you change? The challenge that we as well as everyone else is facing right now is a shortage of nurses. We began doing a New Grad Internship 5 years ago. We started out with a handful of nursing students. Each year we go to the schools and recruit with flyers and luncheons. We promote the Internship as a transition into their nursing career. We provide opportunities to help them grow and weekly meetings as a supplement to their training. With this process, we are seeing the numbers of nursing students continue to grow. Last year we recruited 64 new graduate nurses. This was the highest number of new grads that we have put into the program. This year we expect to exceed that number. | |
| Who was involved in the improvement/change process? Many people have been involved in training, you know the saying that “It takes a whole tribe to raise a child”, well, it takes a whole hospital to train a nurse. Significant key players have been staff in Human Resources, the Internship hiring manager, staff in the Education Department, the Director of Human Resources and the Director of Education. | |
| What improvements occurred? This year we changed the program from an 8 week program to a 12 week program. Before the end of 2006, we will have completed 5 small Internships, instead of one big Internship. Because of this change, we were able to accomodate the people and schools. | |
| What is the estimate of costs, FTE’s, time, etc., saved? Where we have seen the most valuable savings is in the staff that we have and the committment they have to our hospital. We have found that they are more confident in their abilities because they were not just turned loose as a new grad. Our savings come from the reduced amount of errors that we see in their work and the way they perform as nurses. We have also used this program for nurses who have taken time off to rear a family and have now returned to the work force or for someone who has worked outside the hospital setting, for example; a long term care facility, and is now ready to come to an acute care setting. This program has been instumental in the way our nurses are trained. We have had positive evaluations on the outcome of the Internship and we continue to fine tune it to meet our needs as well as the new grads needs. The New grad internship continues to evolve. As the hospital goes through changes, we are able to pass along those changes in our training of the new grads. | |