Innovative approach to relieve nursing shortages through staff training and education

AMN Center Offers Customized Programs for Nurses, Leaders and Other Healthcare Professionals

The healthcare industry is experiencing unprecedented workforce shortages resulting from the confluence of rising patient demand, a wave of retirements among an aging healthcare professionals, and the lack of experienced and specialized practitioners who are needed today and in the future.

These shortages will persist despite any changes in healthcare policy following the November election, because the forces driving them transcend policy changes that may occur. For example, rising patient demand is driven by our aging populace; people 65 and older use three times a much healthcare as the general population, and people 75 and older use four times as much. That won’t be changed by any new laws or regulations.

Data clearly illustrates the magnitude of this supply and demand problem. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows the gap currently running at about a half-million unfilled healthcare jobs. It is estimated that nearly 1 million more nurses will be needed by from 2014-2024, according to BLS data, while the AMN Healthcare 2015 Survey of Registered Nurses showed that 62% of nurses over 54 are considering retirement, and most of those within the next few years.

At AMN Healthcare, the nation’s leading healthcare staffing and workforce solutions company, we are seeing this problem first hand through extremely high demand for travel nurses, allied professionals, physicians and other contingent staffing -- a clear reflection of the industry supply issues. All healthcare staffing companies are experiencing serious challenges in filling all the orders received for healthcare professionals.

Not only will the number of new nursing graduates fail to keep pace with demand, but the burgeoning retirements of experienced nurses and other clinicians is placing a heightened strain on healthcare systems to find specialized patient care providers. Nurses are particularly in high demand where greater experience is necessary, such as intensive care, labor and delivery and emergency departments. It is especially hard to replace nurses who retire from these areas, because these practitioners possess hard-earned skills, critical thinking, fast reactions and a high level of confidence developed through experience.

A Novel Idea for Educating the Workforce of the Future

Recognizing that a multifaceted approach to solving workforce shortages is necessary, AMN has developed customized training programs to help healthcare organizations develop their own workforces. AMN Healthcare is in a unique position to help healthcare providers develop the workforce that they need through education and training. In addition to decades of experience and innovation in healthcare staffing and workforce solutions development, we also are a major provider of education and training programs in nursing, developed and supported by clinical education experts.

That’s why we developed The Center for the Advancement of Healthcare Professionals, which is designed to provide customized education and training for nurses and other healthcare professionals to develop the specialty-care and experience clinicians, along with expert leaders, who are needed for organizations to thrive in this rapidly evolving healthcare landscape.

The Center provides custom healthcare education, research, professional practice tools and professional development services so providers can build and maintain a high-performance healthcare workforce that delivers outstanding care. The Center’s education programs span many job categories, ranging from unit nurses to directors, managers and charge nurses. In short, we believe The Center can serve as a key resource for educating the healthcare workforce of the future.

The Center’s Three Major Areas of Focus

Transition-to-Practice Program for Improved Patient Care
This program provides specialized training through customized, accredited residency and fellowship programs to help organizations build and retain their healthcare workforce. Working in coordination with the healthcare organization, The Center creates and manages all aspects of the programs, from recruitment to customizing curriculum in order to meet the organization’s specific needs.

These programs are geared to bringing recent nursing graduates into the workforce, so that they can handle the high-pressure world of acute patient care. Each participant receives hands-on, individualized attention throughout the entire program, starting with residency and continuing through certification. Program graduates report feeling much more confident and prepared to hit the ground running – both within the practice of nursing and their specialty.

In one recent Transition-to-Practice partnership, AMN Healthcare partnered with New York-Presbyterian Hospital (NYP) and another staffing vendor to deliver a six-week training course for 19 new nursing graduates. After an initial two-week classroom orientation, the nurses worked on their assigned medical-surgical units under the watchful eye of expert nurse trainers who oversaw their provision of care. The trainers focused on helping the new nurses enhance their clinical judgment and competencies with the overall goal of improving patient care and safety. Following program completion, both participants and the hospital’s nursing leaders expressed satisfaction with the training, mentorship and work experience received by participants.

NYP also realized significant cost savings through the utilization of the newly trained nurses who could cover various shifts at a lower hourly cost than overtime pay for existing staff. At three month’s post-implementation, NYP reported a savings of about $21,000 per month from utilizing the 19 new graduates rather than overtime pay. Projecting out for a year, the hospital estimated a savings of $273,000 based on shift coverage provided by the 19 program graduates.

Along with these cost efficiencies, the Transition-to-Practice program creates a staffing pipeline that enables healthcare organizations to immediately fill critical workforce gaps, develops staff loyalty through training opportunities and produces highly qualified clinicians. With the industry’s movement toward value-based healthcare reimbursement, and its focus on better patient outcomes, superior trained staff can mean better patient care resulting in higher reimbursements.

Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) Academy Prepares Key Nurse Leaders
Leadership development is critical in nursing, especially at the CNO level. Many current CNOs are nearing retirement, and most healthcare organizations do not have in place a succession plan for leadership.

The Center’s CNO Academy recognizes the critical role that Chief Nursing Officers fulfill in shaping patient care and nurse staffing; it can fills the pervasive training gap for new and aspiring leaders, many of whom come from an organization’s staff ranks.

However, today the breadth and scope of CNO duties are much more expansive than in the past and specialized knowledge is needed. Conducted as a three-day retreat, the CNO Academy helps nurse executives develop leadership and relationship-building skills for effectively steering teams to successful outcomes. Participants are presented with numerous case studies, role modeling, guided discussions about problem management, and instruction on how to effectively deal in this new healthcare environment.

Attendees gain actionable insights and proven strategies to help solve the unique challenges facing today’s nurse executives, and they also build their professional network for guidance and support.

Center Research Sheds Light on Industry Issues
As part of AMN Healthcare efforts to raise awareness and better understand the challenges facing healthcare organizations today, we conduct surveys exploring major healthcare workforce issues.

Some of our recent surveys examined such issues as the utilization of predictive analytics in nurse scheduling and staffing; the emergence of new clinical job roles in light of healthcare industry transformation; growth and staffing trends in urgent care and retail clinics, and nurse’s views on retirement, education and careers.

The Center for the Advancement of Healthcare Professionals will continue these and other studies as support for healthcare organizations to deliver quality patient care.

The views, opinions and positions expressed within these guest posts are those of the author alone and do not represent those of Becker's Hospital Review/Becker's Healthcare. The accuracy, completeness and validity of any statements made within this article are not guaranteed. We accept no liability for any errors, omissions or representations. The copyright of this content belongs to the author and any liability with regards to infringement of intellectual property rights remains with them.

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