Becker's Hospital Review

106 CMO / CARE DELIVERY CommonSpirit's plan to curb turnover among new nurses By Erica Carbajal N urses who entered the field during the COVID-19 pandemic faced unique challenges as they stepped into a time of unprecedented turbulence in modern healthcare. Pre-pandemic, turnover among nurses in their first year on the job was already rela- tively high. Studies have shown new grad turnover rates as high as 30 percent during the first year of practice, and as high as 57 percent in the second year. e effects of COVID-19 may have complicated that. "New grads came in, and because of the pan- demic, during a really hard time, and said 'this just isn't for me,' and so the turnover of the new grads was very rapid — within the first few months — much more rapidly than it was previous to COVID-19," said Kathy Sanford, DBA, RN, chief nursing officer at Chicago-based CommonSpirit Health. Novices entering the field at the height of the pandemic missed out on the normal level of support they would have received otherwise, Dr. Sanford told Becker's. "It's anecdotal, but I've been told that they felt unsupported," she said. "We had to have all hands on deck taking care of patients," Dr. Sanford said, adding that front-line nurse managers were tied up most of the time taking patient loads. at meant "the normal support that a new grad would get during times when we didn't have a pandemic wasn't there." Some nursing students also had in-person clinical time disrupted as many health sys- tems restricted operations to essential func- tions early in the pandemic, another factor complicating the transition from student to nurse. An April 2021 survey from the International Council of Nurses found 73 percent of National Nurses Associations re- ported the pandemic disrupted undergrad- uate students' education. e effects of the pandemic brought renewed attention to the importance of a new nurse's first year transitioning from student to ex- pert. To boost support and ensure new hires have a more unified experience, Common- Spirit is launching a systemwide, one-year residency program. "e residency program we're putting in has both the preceptors that are on the units teaching nurses how to be nurses and take care of patients, but it also has a didactic portion and a support portion, coaching and mentoring — a little bit different than other residencies in the past," Dr. Sanford said. "New nurses need help learning how to do things other than taking care of patients," she said, which is what the didactic portion of the program will focus on. e program will include classes that cover: "Where do you go if you feel like you're being bullied? What is your personality, and how do you get along with people with different personalities? Where do you go if you have a great idea [about] how we can do things better? And finally, your own well-being. How are you as a nurse going to take care of your own physical, mental and spiritual well- being?" Dr. Sanford said. e didactic portion of the program will be completed through an online learning plat- form, while work with preceptors will be both virtual and in-person. "Most residency programs are just teaching you how to take care of multiple patients and work on the unit and get the jobs done. is one is, I think, a bit more holistic," Dr. Sanford said. n Ivermectin didn't curb COVID-19 hospitalizations: study By Erica Carbajal I n a trial of nearly 1,400 COVID-19 patients, those who received the antiparasitic drug ivermectin didn't fare better than those who received a placebo, The Wall Street Journal reported March 18. At the time of publication, it was the largest tri- al yet to evaluate the drug's effect on the coronavi- rus. The findings were presented March 18 at a fo- rum sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, Edward Mills, PhD, one of the study's lead researchers, told the Journal. "There was no indication that ivermectin was clinically use- ful," Dr. Mills said. He is a professor of health sciences at Canada's McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. The research involved 1,348 adults in Brazil who tested positive for COVID-19 and were all at risk of develop- ing a severe case. Half of the patients were prescribed a course of ivermectin pills for three days and the other half received a placebo. Dr. Mills and team looked at whether patients on ivermectin were less likely to require hospital- ization, whether they cleared the virus faster, whether their symptoms resolved sooner, whether they were in the hos- pital or on ventilators for less time, and whether there was a difference in death rates between the cohorts. Findings showed ivermectin didn't improve patient out- comes for any of these factors. "This is the first large, prospective study that should really help put to rest ivermectin and not give any credibility to the use of it for COVID-19," Peter Hotez, MD, PhD, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, who reviewed the findings, told the Journal. Ivermectin is primarily used to treat patients with certain parasitic diseases and has not been approved to treat any viral infections. The FDA has warned large doses of the drug are dangerous. n

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