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This will focus on identifying the characteristics of mentors that have (or could be) most successful in recruiting and training diverse nurses and nurse faculty. At my facility me and another fellow nurse are head of our units mentoring program. This program that we have implemented focuses on the new graduated nurse and follows them through their first year of nursing.
The new graduated nurse Is paired p with a seasoned day shift and night shift nurse to answer any questions, facilitate a mentor-new graduate relationship and help orient the new nurse and try to build a strong, confident nurse. We routinely once a month see that the new nurse and their mentor meet to see how thing are going and see if they have any problems or concerns whether it be clinical skills, problems with other staff/physicians, proportioning, and task management. Through this we are hoping to be able to Increase morale, patient satisfaction and Increase nurse retention.
As new nurses enter the workforce they face a challenge going from student nurse to professional nurse. One must be prepared mentally, physically and emotionally to be a mentor and to set a productive learning environment for the new graduate. Then manner in which new graduates are socialized and oriented in the unit or facility Is essential. Our unit adopted this program because we found/heard that many new graduates coming out of nursing school felt like sometimes the more seasoned nurses were sometimes unfriendly or “like to eat their young”.
Obviously his is unacceptable and with the nursing shortages and the cost to hire and orient and new nursing graduate, nursing turnover is frowned upon. On the renal floor that I work on all nurses must go through telemetry classes and be CALLS certified this all comes out of our budget for education so having to do this repeatedly will decrease productivity for our floor. I believe if we mentor the nurse correctly and train him/her to become a very competent nurse this will Increase patient satisfaction and hopefully Increase reimbursement.
Although there Is no published research assuring the strength of this relationship, research does exist explaining the effects of the relationship and its effect on the new graduates’ work environment, which may influence Job satisfaction and decrease turnover (Lavabo-Trembler et al. , 2011). I believe a well trained nurse will address the increasing demand for safe, high quality and effective health care services. It’s no secret that staffing Issues are always Just that- an Issue at least where I work It Is pretty frequently.
Working short or “flexing” as we call it can cause turmoil for a new nurse they may be asked early in the experience to take on more responsibilities when this occurs, here is when the mentor can come into play. This is when we hope the mentor can help the new nurse in re-evaluating a plan of care and setting new priorities especially with a change in patient assignment. Our mentors are taught to help the new nurse learn how to effectively delegate, handle conflicts, communicate effectively with physicians and again patient satisfaction.
The goal of our unit is to try to decrease nursing “burnout” which can sometimes be hard to do at time. As a result of mentors programs elate care organizations report increased staff satisfaction, leadership, competence, and retentions of employees (Shaffer, Utilitarian, & Walsh, 2000). Continued research in this area could strengthen the ability of nurses to lead in both individual organizations and as advocates of health care reform by strengthening the nursing workforce and, in turn, improve the quality of care and patient outcomes/satisfaction.
According to a report on the future of nursing released by the Institute of Medicine (MM) in 2010; mentoring helps develop nurses into leaders who can play a larger art in the development, design and delivery of health care, which will ultimately strengthen the nation’s health care system.