Nurse Reduces Nurse Turnover By 50%

As today’s workforce ages, along with the overall population, the United States will need 3.6 million new nurses by 2026. That—plus high turnover due to burnout, poor work-life balance, overstaffing and abusive work environments—has made the nursing shortage a salient problem facing our health care system.

Try as administrators and human resources reps might, the most qualified individuals to address these challenges might be nurses themselves, according to a recent report from Daily Nurse. The associate chief of nurse mental health at VA Medical Center in Tomah, Wisconsin, Natalie Hackbarth MSN, RN, shares how her facility has reduced nurse turnover by 52%.

The core of the program is ongoing communication between managers and staff, she explained. Employees talk with team leaders both 30 and 90 days after starting a new job, and after they get adjusted, annually. Interviews focus on…