Nursing School Programs

A recent study by the company of Martin, Fletcher showed that hospitals are really rolling out the red carpet in their efforts to hire new nurses. 88 percent of hospitals offered a substantial sign-on bonus, in the high thousands of dollars, the study on health compensation showed. Other benefits offered by hospitals hoping to recruit new staff include generous relocation packages (average over $5,000, the study showed), tuition reimbursement deals, and payment for continuing education.

However, nurses should investigate the hospital that they are considering working at; is there a high turnover rate? If so, why? Is it in a neighborhood/city that the nurse wants to be in for at least a few years? (Generally when a hospital offers a financial incentive to come work for them, they require the nurse to stay for a certain agreed-on period of time in exchange for it.)

The fact that a hospital is offering a lot of incentives to work for them, though, does not necessarily mean that they are a bad place to work. There is such a severe nursing shortage everywhere that even great facilities are scrambling to recruit new nurses.

The State of California seems to have come up with a novel way to lure registered nurses to their state - improve the work environment for nurses.

In 2004, a law was passed in California regulating the patient-nurse ratio - the law limits the amount of patients that can be assigned to each nurse. This seems so obvious, it’s astounding that every state in the country does not already have this as a law, but many don’t. Of course, when a nurse is assigned too many patients, the patients health and safety is at risk, the nurse’s stress level and job dissatisfaction rises, and the turnover rate of the nursing staff is much higher.

This means that the nurses with experience leave, which means patients are going to be cared for by less-experienced nurses.

But since this law passed in California, 80,000 new registered nurses have come to work there. Other states which are struggling with nursing shortages should take heed.