Monday, February 21, 2000
Nurse recruiting effort launched
Signing bonus not enough, hospitals realize
BY TIM BONFIELD
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Tristate hospitals, struggling to hire enough nurses in a full-employment economy, have launched a community-wide recruitment effort.
It began Thursday with a summit meeting at the Greater Cincinnati Health Council that attracted eight hospital chief executives, 15 directors of nursing, at least six vice presidents of human resources, nursing school administrators and executives from nurse recruitment agencies.
“(The nurse shortage) was described as a crisis. That's the level of concern,” said Lynn Olman, president of the Health Council. “There was agreement that we were serious and that there would be action.”
For more than a year, hospitals have offered nurses signing bonuses as high as $3,000 plus flexible hours and other incentives to fill vacancies.
Meanwhile, nurses at several hospitals have raised concerns about increasing patient loads; long, sometimes mandatory, overtime hours, and the stresses of working through seemingly endless consolidations, cutbacks and re-organizations.
“The workload is unbelievable and there's no relief in sight,” said Ron Hamilton, an emergency department nurse at Christ Hospital and co-founder of Concerned Nurses Coalition.
Last March, nursing jobs dominated a list of hard-to-fill positions assembled by the Health Council. Of 789 openings in 31 job categories at 25 hospitals, 462 were nursing jobs.
The vacancy rate was 19.6 percent among oncology nurses, 13 percent among critical care nurses and 8.4 percent among general staff nurses.
“Signing bonuses just haven't been solving the problem,” Mrs. Olman said. “We have positions and we have nurse recruiters telling us they just can't fill them.”
Many factors are combining to make it hard to hire nurses.
In a strong economy, some nurses choose to stay home.
Some would-be hospital nurses are choosing easier nursing jobs away from hospitals or careers outside of medicine.
And hospital managers acknowledge they have damaged morale.
Among the issues raised Thursday:
• How to make nursing education connect more clearly with on-the-job reality.
• How to recruit more minorities and men into nursing.
• How to reach out to high school students.
• And how to make hospital bedside nursing more appealing.
The goal among the hospitals is to pursue the issue as a group, not to have individual institutions competing with each other, Mrs. Olman said.
Next, the group plans to form committees to pursue ideas raised Thursday, and distribute a survey of job concerns to area nurses.
While the high-level interest appears encouraging, Mr. Hamilton said he wants to see more details and real action before he praises the new initiative.
“There's always another survey,” he said. “This will be successful only when the workload gets reduced so we can give the kind of care we were trained to give.”
Licking recedes at Falmouth, but the Ohio's still rising
Flood-seasoned Falmouth relieved
Bush fund skirts cap on election donations
McCain banking on independents
School change proves victory for democracy
Census stresses effect of count on area's coffers
Nurse recruiting effort launched
Officials stuck on pay raises
Police probe pair of killings
City thinks high-tech in 2000
Gordeeva skating more smoothly through life
8 schools targeting substance abusers
Bill would give parity to mental disorders
Boone County to open second office for clerks
Forum goes beyond Mass
Street work in Norwood planned in two phases
Volunteers needed to help playland blossom
Wellness paired with health care
GET TO IT
TRISTATE DIGEST
