Immersing new emergency room nurses

Purpose/Objectives: A 92-bed Emergency Center is hiring Graduate Nurses (GNs) at a much higher rate than historically. The GNs have attended and finished nursing school during the COVID-19 pandemic and have expressed concern with not feeling prepared and able to care for the specialized population of emergency center patients. Experiential learning during the pandemic was limited for the new nurses and decreased their perceived competence with patients in general. Description of Project: This project included creating and implementing a 10-week Graduate Nurse Immersion orientation program to bridge the learning gap from academia to nursing practice after graduation. The 10-week program, based on the Emergency Nurses Association GN Residency outline, is broken down into a once a week 8-hour class for new nurses to learn specialized content to care for emergency center patients with various complaints and needs. Outcomes: The newly graduated nurses will improve their job satisfaction and competence within the specialized Emergency Center setting. The Casey-Fink Graduate Nurse Experience Survey results will reflect improved satisfaction. Nursing retention rates within the Emergency Center will improve at the 1-year, 2-year, and 5-year periods. Conclusion: The results are yet to be determined with the first group currently attending the GN Immersion program and surveys will be collected in June of 2023 to determine job satisfaction. Preliminary verbal feedback is satisfaction within the program to supplement the experiential in-unit orientation process. Discussion: This project has the potential to decrease nurse turnover in the Emergency Center and improve overall satisfaction and perceived competence within the work environment. The hospital system CNO is interested in implementing this GN Immersion program into all ECs (Emergency Centers) within the system. The improved nursing retention can decrease the hospital's cost for replacing nurses, estimated between $50,000 to $80,000, including the nursing salary and all incidental costs for learning (precepting and educator costs).