Since 2001 the Baptist Health South Florida (BHSF) scholars program has accepted more than 1,600 nursing students. Each year approximately 210 new nursing students join the ranks of an innovative program that provides scholarships, clinical and classroom instruction in sync with a community college or university program and on-site mentoring by experienced BHSF nurses.
BHSF holds an annual fund-raising to secure additional funds for scholarships which is well attended by donors and scholars. The scholars share their stories of success and how important the funds are to fulfilling their dreams of becoming nurses. The investment BHSF made of more than $13 million in scholarships to this innovative program has more than paid off.
Baptist Health has hired a number of masters prepared nurses to serve as clinical and classroom instructors, and mentors for the student and novice nurse. Not only are these nursing students recruited for the current and future vacancies at BHSF, but their retention is very important. Turnover can cost the institution in a number of ways: decreased employee and patient satisfaction, less experienced nurses at the bedside, and no replacements for the retiring nurses.
The Registered Nurse (RN) Residency Program serves as training for new RN graduates that started in August 2007 with more than 100 new nurses in an effort to reduce turn over rates at Baptist Health. The RN Residency Program runs 18 weeks and helps the new RN graduate, transition into the role of the Registered Nurse. The program consists of five major components; recruitment and retention, preceptor, mentor, debriefer and curriculum, which have all led to the success of the program and reduced new RN graduates vacancy and turn over rates at Baptist Health.
The current nursing education partners include: Miami-Dade College, Barry University, Nova Southeastern University and Florida Keys Community College. Through these partnerships Baptist Health has been able to provide many of our employees and members of the community the opportunity to pursue a career in nursing, which many would have otherwise found impossible to accomplish. The BHSF Scholars program in combination with the RN Residency Program has helped reduce the new RN vacancy rate from 22.3 percent to 12.1 percent.
The BHSF campus is growing and additional beds will open. These programs that recruit and retain nurses will create the nursing staff necessary for the expansion and the anticipated retirement of the current workforce. The investment in both aspects recruitment and retention is the only way to assure the nurses are there for the patients. The partnerships with the educational programs are also crucial. Many of the institutions have faculty shortages and without help from hospitals who have masters prepared staff devoted to the education of students, this would not be possible.
Baptist Health continues to monitor the future trends and offers a number of educational opportunities to their nurses. There are on-site programs for generic Bachelor of Science Nursing, Registered Nurse to Master of Science in Nursing specialties. These opportunities contribute to nursing retention and create a culture where education is valued and promoted.
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