Ms. Tomcavage drives strategies to improve Geisinger’s nursing practice, focusing on retention and recruitment efforts that promote professional development, innovation and recognition. Retention efforts like Geisinger’s nursing scholars program helped more than 250 employees begin a nursing career at Geisinger. Expanding the program to include more nursing and support roles more than doubled enrollment, contributing to its highest number of internal promotions to RN. She guided the expansion of Geisinger’s nursing co-op and intern/extern programs to secure a student-to-employee pipeline. After opening biannual enrollment, Geisinger’s School of Nursing nearly doubled enrollment this past year. Annually, 70% of nursing school graduates choose to work at Geisinger. Her retention and recruitment efforts led to an 8.2% voluntary turnover rate this past year, which is considered the top decile in the nation. She also sponsors innovative nursing care models and champions technological investments like virtual nursing that empower each team member to work to the top of their skill set, license and education. Hiring 14 virtual nurses helped serve more than 500 beds and expedited 16,690 discharges and admissions, freeing up bedside nurses for direct patient care. The care team redesign is being deployed across nine hospital platforms.
