Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1468749
60 NURSING SPOTLIGHT Hospitals use internships, mentoring to replenish nursing pools By Kelly Gooch A mid shortages of nurses, hospitals are developing mentoring and internship programs to improve their hiring position in a tight labor market, the Miami Herald reported April 21. Nurses have le their jobs or healthcare entirely during the COVID-19 pandemic for a variety of reasons, including stress and exhaustion as well as retirement and vulnerability to severe illness. Hospitals have offered bonuses, increased wages and made other investments in employee retention and recruitment. ey have also vied for talent with perks beyond pay and by establishing internal travel programs. Still, recruitment remains a challenge for many organizations. One strategy hospitals are using to address this involves mentoring and training nurses, according to the Miami Herald. Take a fellowship program at Hollywood, Fla.-based Memorial Healthcare System, for example. e six-hospital system began the fellowship program in August to train nurses to work in specialty areas such as surgery, intensive care and oncology, according to Maggie Hansen, RN, senior vice president and chief nurse execu- tive at Memorial. e program includes hands-on coaching as well as simulation training, among other components. "Nationwide, the specialty areas of the hospital are the most com- plex places, where the sickest patients need care and where we had the most vacancies," Ms. Hansen told the Miami Herald. "With so many baby boomers retiring and taking all of that knowledge and skill out of the workforce, it was creating an experience complexity gap that we needed to address." e newspaper also reported on the intensive care unit internship program at Broward Health Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. e 30-week program launched in July 2021 to train new nurses for the ICU. Nicole Puleo, clinical specialist in the critical care department at Broward Health, told the Miami Herald the organization "started to think outside of the box of what we could do to help get new staff and quickly," and the first group graduated from the program in February. Outside of Florida, Columbus, Ohio-based Mount Carmel Health System is recruiting for a critical care internship for the summer and a critical care fellowship. Jerry Mansfield, PhD, RN, chief nursing officer for Mount Carmel, told Becker's earlier in April the internship is for nurses who are in nursing school between junior and senior year to spend time in the Mount Carmel critical care units, while the fellowship is a more concentrated experience where nurses spend 24 weeks in a structured orientation. e fellowship, which is open to college graduates, involves didactic learning as well as training on how to work within a professional team. n Nurse practitioner average annual wage in 50 states By Kelly Gooch N urse practitioners in the U.S. make an average of $118,040 annually, according to the latest data released March 31 by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nurse practitioners earn the highest average salary in California at $151,830. New Jersey is second at $137,010, followed by New York at $133,940. Below are the average mean annual wages for nurse practitioners in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., ac- cording to May 2021 data, the most recent available. The states are listed in alphabetical order. Alabama: $102,410 Alaska: $113,820 Arizona: $119,910 Arkansas: $107,080 California: $151,830 Colorado: $112,580 Connecticut: $120,450 Delaware: $116,230 Florida: $104,830 Georgia: $109,560 Hawaii: $127,490 Idaho: $105,290 Illinois: $120,470 Indiana: $113,490 Iowa: $121,370 Kansas: $108,710 Kentucky: $106,080 Louisiana: $112,650 Maine: $116,370 Maryland: $115,700 Massachusetts: $129,540 Michigan: $108,770 Minnesota: $127,010 Mississippi: $111,750 Missouri: $103,490 Montana: $115,710 Nebraska: $112,670 Nevada: $123,680 New Hampshire: $120,730 New Jersey: $137,010 New Mexico: $118,480 New York: $133,940 North Carolina: $112,730 North Dakota: $112,720 Ohio: $112,490 Oklahoma: $116,650 Oregon: $128,190 Pennsylvania: $117,260 Rhode Island: $126,760 South Carolina: $102,850 South Dakota: $112,320 Tennessee: $95,120 Texas: $117,890 Utah: $112,920 Vermont: $112,540 Virginia: $112,320 Washington: $130,840 Washington, D.C.: $125,290 West Virginia: $104,750 Wisconsin: $116,990 Wyoming: $114,530 n