You are a newly hired manager for the emergency department. At your first monthly operating review, you are handed a number of reports, and your challenge begins. When reviewing the documents, you discover the following issues:
RN turnover by department report. The turnover document shows a 40 percent turnover rate for the year because everyone hated the previous manager. Your hospital has lost eight full-time, experienced ED nurses in the last year.
RN vacancy rate by department report. You currently have four openings on the night and weekend shifts. You have a great nurse recruiter, however, and she would like to meet with you as soon as possible to strategize how to fill your openings.
Department operating report. Your volume has been wonderful; in fact, you are ahead of budget by 3 percent. However, your salaries, wages, and benefits per ED visit is over budget; the primary coverage is in contract labor and overtime because of the many openings.
On further analysis, you discover that five of the 16 full-time RNs in the ED have been hired in the last year to cover the many departures.
Employee satisfaction scores. The overall employee satisfaction in the ED has dropped 10 percent in the last year.
What would you do to stem all of these problems? What strategies would you employ?
Source: Tenet Healthcare Corporation. Reprinted with permission.