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20 CMO / CARE DELIVERY Intermountain hospital boosts nurse retention to 97% with group mentoring By Mariah Taylor D enver-based Intermountain Health/Saint Joseph Hospital has had a nurse mentoring program since 2018, but in 2023, it decided to redo everything. In the beginning, the hospital had a one-on-one mentoring program designed to support new graduates. It was successful until COVID hit and the nursing landscape changed dramatically, Lillian Donnelly, MSN, RN, program manager of nursing professional development at Intermountain Health/ Saint Joseph Hospital, told Becker's. Increased turnover and a shi in staff composition required the hospital to reconsider its mentorship structure. "Suddenly, most of our nurses were novices, and we were losing experienced nurses who had been there for years and could serve as mentors," Ms. Donnelly said. "Financial constraints, heavier workloads and work-life balance challenges made it difficult to find individual mentors." Ms. Donnelly began researching alternative options and came across a successful business strategy: group mentoring. e pilot program, run by Ms. Donnelly and Sarah Andre DNP, RN, transition-to-practice coordinator, launched in March 2023 and uses nursing professional-development staff as mentors. e first two cohorts showed success, but nurses wanted someone closer to their experience level. So in November of that year, they launched a peer mentoring program. Currently, 75 new graduate nurses participate in group mentoring and 20 nurses from ICU and cardiovascular care participate in two additional mentoring groups. Ms. Donnelly attributes part of the program's success to nurses having an opportunity to bond with peers, share experiences and feel less isolated. ey also receive professional guidance and create a support team that encourages them along their journey. Since launching the group mentoring, nurse retention rate has risen to 97%. Expansion is on the horizon. Ms. Donnelly said she wants to expand group mentoring to more specialties, develop a formal mentor commitment process, stay up to date on best practices and bring back in-person mentor classes. For leaders wanting to do something similar, Ms. Donnelly has three pieces of advice: • Define a mentor: "Mentoring can mean different things in different hospitals, so it's important to define your program's goals and align them with your hospital's values and culture. One of Intermountain Health's core values is "Better Together," which fits perfectly with mentoring. Having alignment across the organization makes implementation smoother." • Be flexible: "We initially started with smaller groups of four mentees per mentor but found it wasn't enough to foster dynamic interaction. We've since adjusted to six mentees per mentor, which encourages better discussion and engagement." • Review and update regularly: "If you're using the same materials year aer year, you're not evolving. I conduct an annual literature review to ensure our content stays relevant and fresh." n $800M+ vaccine investment aims to boost pandemic readiness By Erica Carbajal H HS is investing more than $800 million in vaccine development and manufacturing capacity to strengthen the nation's response capabilities to emerging infectious disease threats, including bird flu. Five notes: 1. On Jan. 16, the agency said it intends to invest $211 million to support the development of an RNA-based vaccine technology platform and long-term manufacturing capabilities. The funds will be allocated through the agency's Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response. 2. "The funding will allow us to bring the benefits of mRNA vaccine technology to bear against a wider array of emerging threats," Dawn O'Connell, assistant secretary for preparedness and response at HHS, said in a Jan. 16 news release. "mRNA technology can be faster to develop and easier to update than other vaccines making it a helpful tool to have against viruses that move fast and mutate quickly." 3. HHS will also provide approximately $590 million to Moderna. The drugmaker will use the funds to accelerate development of pandemic influenza mRNA-based vaccines, according to a separate announcement Jan. 17. 4. The U.S. has announced a series of new measures aimed at accelerating the nation's response to bird flu in recent days. On Jan. 14, the Biden administration released a 300-page playbook meant for future administrations to "protect the nation and effectively respond to any future biological threat." On Jan. 16, the CDC published a health alert recommending hospitals perform subtyping to test for bird flu in all hospitalized patients who test positive for influenza A. 5. The CDC has confirmed 67 cases of bird flu among humans since the spring of 2024. There has been no evidence of person-to- person transmission, and federal health officials maintain that the risk the disease poses to public health remains low. n