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Post Research on nurse retention?
Author: MDavis
Date: Feb 18, 2009 12:46 pm
Want to use nurse retention as a selling point. Anyone have a reference for research done in this area?
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Re:Research on nurse retention? (by kkerr on 02/19/2009)
Great question. I do not know of any studies that investigate the question “does the presence of a palliative care service have an impact on nurse retention?” It makes a lot of sense that a PC service would help with retention issues – if RNs feel more supported and able to meet the needs of patients with serious chronic illnesses they should feel more satisfied, or at minimum a source of frustration and dissatisfaction might be eliminated. The difficulty is that so many variables influence nurse retention – you could have a fantastic palliative care service and all staff might feel fully empowered to provide the best possible care for seriously ill patients and their families … but if the salary and benefit package is kind of lousy, or if the nursing supervisor is a psychopath, or if there is no parking at the hospital … you still might have issues with nurse retention. What we recommend in our trainings at the UCSF PCLC is that you narrow the selling point to more specifically address how a palliative care service can help with nurse retention. Instead of “a PC service will improve RN retention” you could say “a PC service will support RNs and other staff in ensuring that our sickest, most complicated patients get comprehensive care that is well-aligned with patient and family preferences. In doing so, we will contribute to a positive work environment that promotes RN retention.”

So, a PC service won’t solve your RN retention issues, but it can help. And when addressing such topics is seems that local data trumps all. So you might consider administering a brief survey to your RN staff asking about how supported they feel in providing care to patients with serious chronic illnesses/patients who die in the hospital – how confident are they in their ability to manage pain and other symptoms, do they feel they have access to resources needed to assess and relieve spiritual distress, do they feel confident that treatment goals are clear for these patients, etc. So, all the things that a PC service would help with. Documenting local deficits which your proposed PC service can help with will probably carry as much if not more weight than data culled from the literature. Hope that helps.

Regards,

Kathleen Kerr
Senior Analyst
University of California San Francisco
Palliative Care Leadership Center

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