With hospitals and medical organizations facing a decline in enrollment in the last several years, it has never been more important to make sure that your programs and procedures for training and onboarding new nurses are well optimized and obstruction free. With nurse burnout and turnover being at very high levels as well, it is imperative for hospital administrators to do their utmost to make sure that nurse interns are not experiencing undue difficulty in their onboarding experience.
Besides the intense workload faced by prospective nurses who are still finishing residency, there are other complications that negatively impact their experience and their potential for success.
To that end, here are three of the most common obstacles according to nursing interns and prospective nurses and our recommendations for how to overcome them.
1. Inadequate technology or personnel to train and aid interns
Through no fault of their own, there is often an imbalance between the number of available nurse trainers versus the total number of trainees. Additionally, trainers are often limited by their other professional responsibilities and can often lack the technology or an adequate support system for tracking the trainees in their charge. A clinical workforce management system can help with this and can help facilitate better training and student-teacher relationships.
2. Organizational Stress from Poor Scheduling Practices
Poor scheduling can be a mental drain even for the most experienced nursing professionals and this is even more true for up-and-coming nurses. Consecutive or double shifts can quickly exhaust interns and can be exacerbated by unhealthy shift patterns. While overtime is almost never required for interns, it can be accrued unintentionally especially while training is taking place. Training managers should be conscientious of this when scheduling trainees and should take proactive steps to make sure that no burnout is occurring.
3. Information Overload
Nurses in training will often need to balance both their academic education as well as their practical education. Training needs to be structured and organized such that it can hold attention and demonstrate not just information but relevance too. Comprehension and retention improve when connections are made between a procedure or function and why it matters. Without an effective routine and information structuring, and without effective support from their teachers, students can flounder and begin to experience burnout. While technology can help students manage this, it is ultimately up to teachers to make sure that students are retaining information and performing well.
If you’d like to learn more about how StaffReady can help you exercise oversight and exert better control over your organization, you can book a meeting with one of our experts here and accelerate your organization’s progress toward excellence swiftly.
