Proposal for Renfrey Memorial Hospital: Overcoming Staffing Shortages

Proposal for Renfrey Memorial Hospital: Overcoming Staffing Shortages

Executive Summary

Renfrey Memorial Hospital, along with many other healthcare facilities, is facing a critical issue with nursing staff retention and shortage of nurses due to an aging workforce, physical exhaustion, and emotional burnout from the overwhelming population that demands emergency medical care. Our common goal is to address these issues with realistic short and long-term goals. The end result will be an increase in nursing program enrollments, retention of nurses through supportive training programs and increased benefits, including sign-on bonuses and increased salaries, and finally, patient care models that encourage professional nurse autonomy and clinical decision-making.

Renfrey Memorial must implement short and long term strategies to address these issues. Short term strategies I propose include utilizing internal staffing agencies, in lieu of temporary pool nurses from an agency, to meet short-term staffing needs. To attract and retain much-needed nurses, Renfrey should also be prepared to offer large sign-on bonuses and significant salary increases for key specialties, such as intensive care. Research has also shown that the use of flexible scheduling, including offering a broader range of shift types and self-scheduling, has assisted in attracting new nurses and in addressing the issue of increased stress levels and growing nurse burnout.

Long-term strategies that I propose are implemented by Renfrey Memorial for obtaining and maintaining their nursing staff is expanding training capacity or opening new schools to train nurses. “Through these activities, other hospitals have been 'growing their own' nurses. By operating nursing schools, paying for students' education in return for a work commitment, and providing training and flexible hours for current ancillary staff to obtain nursing degrees, other health facilities have seen an improvement in nurse retention” (May, J., 2006). Another long-term strategy that will assist in the nursing retention and shortage crisis is increasing nurse staffing levels during all necessary shifts. Many nurses complain of work being too physically demanding and many are feeling physically exhausted. This solution will aide in dispersing the responsibilities nurses would normally deal with during a shift that lacks manpower. This solution will also encourage professional nurse autonomy and clinical decision-making.

Benchmarking

Many hospitals in the US are dealing with the same issues that Renfrey Memorial Hospital is faced with. “According to a 2002 report by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, in hospitals across the country, 126,000 nursing positions remain unfilled, while 90 percent of long-term care facilities don't have enough nurses