Strategic Planning on Retention Rate at Sunset Harbor Medical Center

Introduction

The scenario describes a nonprofit regional healthcare system, Sunset Harbor Medical Center, which provides hospital care for a five-county rural area. The hospital is facing a critical nursing shortage, resulting in decreased nurse retention rates. The retention rate has decreased by 15%, from 70% to 55%, due to many factors, including early retirements and nurses leaving due to poor patient-staff ratios and unsafe working conditions. The hospital used agency nurses during the height of the crisis but has reached a critical point where unit closures may occur. The selected issue in this scenario is the retention rate of nurses. An initiative to address this could involve identifying and addressing the underlying causes of the decreased retention rate, such as poor patient-staff ratios and unsafe working conditions, and implementing strategies to improve these areas. The hospital can also focus on recruitment, incentives, and training to motivate the nurses to stay in the facility.

Phase 1: Environmental scanning

SWOT analysis for Sunset Harbor:

Strengths:

• Established reputation and history as a healthcare provider
• Experience and expertise of current staff
• Access to medical technology and equipment

Weaknesses:

• Low retention rates for nurses
• Poor patient-to-staff ratios
• Unsafe working conditions
• Decrease in retention rate from 70% to 55%

Opportunities:

• Potential for expanding services to meet community needs
• Opportunities for improving retention rates and staff satisfaction through changes to working conditions and patient-to-staff ratios(Kittles,2021)

Threats:

• Competition from other healthcare providers
• Government regulations and funding changes
• Possibility of unit closures due to financial strain

Organizational environment for Sunset Harbor:

• High stress and workload due to low retention rates and poor patient-to-staff ratios
• Tense and negative atmosphere due to unsafe working conditions
• Financial strain due to low retention rates and potential unit closures
• Lack of job satisfaction and motivation among staff due to poor working conditions

Phase 2: strategic vision and mission

Aligning to the organization’s vision:

• One way the hospital’s current staffing crisis aligns with its vision is that it prevents the hospital from fulfilling its goal of creating a healthy and thriving community. With unit closures and poor patient-staff ratios, the hospital is likely unable to provide comprehensive and quality healthcare to the region’s citizens, which is in direct opposition to the vision of creating a healthy community.
• Another way that the staffing crisis aligns with the vision is that it is impeding the hospital’s ability to work in partnership with its patients. With a shortage of nurses, the hospital may not be able to provide the care and attention that patients need, which can negatively impact the patient’s overall healthcare experience.

Aligning to the organization’s mission:

• One way that the staffing crisis aligns with the mission is that it is causing the hospital not to be able to provide comprehensive, quality, and safe healthcare to the citizens of the Gulf coast region. With unit closures and poor patient-staff ratios, the hospital is likely unable to provide the level of care that the mission statement promises.
• Another way the staffing crisis aligns with the mission is that it negatively impacts the hospital’s ability to use collaborative and evidence-based best practices and innovative modalities of care. With a shortage of nurses, the hospital may need more resources to invest in new practices and technologies, which could negatively impact patient care quality.

Phase 3: strategic plan development

In order to address the nursing shortage and low retention rates at Sunset Harbor Medical Center, a plan development team or stakeholders could include representatives from the hospital administration, nursing leadership, human resources, and a union representative if the nurses are unionized.

An action plan to address the issue could include the following steps:

• Conduct a comprehensive analysis of the current staff and patient acuity levels to identify areas where ratios may be particularly poor.
• Developing a comprehensive recruitment and retention strategy that includes incentives such as sign-on bonuses, retention bonuses, and tuition reimbursement programs.
• Implementing a mentoring program for new nurses to help them acclimate to the hospital and provide support in navigating the working conditions (Hartnauer, 2021).
• Providing additional training opportunities for nurses to improve their skills and advance their careers.
• Reviewing and revising staffing policies to ensure patient and nurse safety are prioritized.

A long-term objective for the plan could be to improve retention rates to 70% or higher within the next 3 years.

A short-term objective could be to increase the retention rate by 5% within the next 6 months.

Phase 4: Implementation

In order to address the nursing shortage and decrease retention rates at Sunset Harbor Medical Center, a plan should be developed and communicated to staff. This plan should include specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (S.M.A.R.T.) goals for improving retention and addressing the root causes of the problem. One goal could be to increase retention rates back to 70% within the next 6 months by implementing strategies to improve patient-staff ratios and working conditions (Moses, 2021). This goal is specific (increase retention rates), measurable (70% retention), attainable (15% increase from current rates), relevant (addressing the root cause of the problem), and time-bound (within 6 months).

Another goal could be to revise policies and procedures for staffing and scheduling to ensure safe working conditions for nurses (Rerkjirattikal et al., 2020). This could include limiting the number of patients assigned to each nurse and implementing mandatory overtime limits. Communicating the plan to staff should be done on time and include opportunities for feedback and input from the staff. Regular updates on progress toward the goals should be provided, and any necessary revisions to the plan should be made based on this feedback.

Phase 5: monitoring progress

To address the problem, it would be important to review various aspects of the hospital’s operations to identify the root causes and determine potential solutions. Some of the things that could be reviewed include the following:

• Retention rates: The hospital should regularly track and analyze retention rates to understand why nurses are leaving and identify any trends or patterns. This information could be used to inform interventions aimed at improving retention.
• Patient-to-staff ratios: The hospital should review its patient-to-staff ratios to ensure that they are appropriate and safe for the level of care being provided (Seekles & Ormandy, 2022). Any discrepancies or issues with these ratios should be identified and addressed.
• Agency nurses: Review the usage of agency nurses, their cost, and their effectiveness of them.

It would be important to review all of these factors regularly to monitor progress and determine whether interventions are having a positive impact. The review process could be led by a task force or a dedicated team within the hospital and could involve input from nurses, administrators, and other stakeholders. Depending on the size of the hospital, a review could occur quarterly or monthly.

In conclusion, the retention rate of nurses at Sunset Harbor Medical Center has decreased by 15% due to many factors, including early retirements and nurses leaving due to poor patient-staff ratios and unsafe working conditions. Therefore to address this issue, the hospital needs to identify and address the underlying causes of the decreased retention rate, such as poor patient-staff ratios and unsafe working conditions, and implement strategies to improve these areas. Recruitment, incentives, and training can also motivate the nurses to stay in the facility. With action to address the nursing shortage and retention rate, the hospital may avoid unit closures and further deterioration of patient care. Therefore, the hospital administration needs to take immediate steps to address this critical issue and ensure the continued provision of quality healthcare for the rural community it serves.

References

Hartnauer, M. J. (2021). Mentoring New Nurses to Increase Retention: A Benchmark Study. https://scholarworks.uttyler.edu/nursing_msn/169/

Kittles, D. V. (2021). Examining Nursing Home Staff Turnover Rate in Long-Term Care Organizations in the United States (Doctoral dissertation, Walden University).

Moses, T. C. (2021). Improving staff retention in adolescent psychiatric residential treatment facilities (Doctoral dissertation, Walden University).

Rerkjirattikal, P., Huynh, V. N., Olapiriyakul, S., & Supnithi, T. (2020). A goal programming approach to nurse scheduling with individual preference satisfaction. Mathematical Problems in Engineering, 2020.

Seekles, M. L., & Ormandy, P. (2022). Exploring the role of the U.K. renal social worker: The nexus between health and social care for renal patients. Plos one, 17(9), e0275007.