OU Health held a panel on Monday to discuss solutions to strengthen its workforce amid nursing shortages.
Julie Hoff, the dean of the OU Fran and Earl Ziegler College of Nursing, announced that OU Health and the College of Nursing are joining forces to launch initiatives they hope will build and support a more educated, engaged and effective nursing workforce.
Jennifer Schults, OU Health’s senior vice president of marketing and external relations said Oklahoma currently has 44,200 nurses, which means there are 11.1 nurses for every 1,000 people, according to the Federal Bureau of Health Workforce. She said there is a 19 percent nursing vacancy rate across OU Health hospitals.
Schults said the nursing shortage is partly due to an aging population that drives the demand for healthcare services. She said this has been a problem within the U.S. for years.
According to the American Nurses Association, the nursing shortage will cause more registered nursing jobs to be available in 2022 than any other profession in the U.S. However, Schults said that the increased interest in nursing programs is not an immediate fix to the health system’s current shortages.
James Brigida, the supervisor of the OU Health Medical Center Trauma Emergency Department, said all nurses choose their profession because they want to help people. He said although he loves his job, the pandemic has made it “tremendously difficult” with its unprecedented challenges that have put a heavy burden on all medical personnel.
“The nursing shortage that we often have talked about over the years in casual conversations is now a true national crisis,” Brigida said. “Throughout all ERs, there is a struggle to get and keep nurses, asking them to work often understaffed, underpaid in an environment with the highest level of acuity and stress. Every department is facing this nationally, but in the ER, it is crippling.”
Brigida said when it is difficult to get patients into rooms, it becomes difficult for the ER to function as it should.
“Ultimately, the nursing shortage has left us all tired and weary,” Brigida said.
Hoff said new incentives to work during stressful times, like relocation, sign-on bonuses, the weekend program, the travel at home program and the nursing degree accelerator program are being built to make OU Health an employer of choice among nurses. She said the health system expects the impact on improved patient care will be nearly immediate while positioning OU Health and its workforce for growth and success.
Hoff said the vision for OU Health’s nursing program is to foster a culture of excellence, inclusivity, innovation and teamwork.
“Flexible options for work and attaining an education are areas of focus as we plan for the future nursing workforce at OU Health and for Oklahoma,” Hoff said. “As we transform our nursing workforce in the new OU Health integrated academic healthcare system, we are rolling out incentives and creating a road map for growth.”
Under the OU Health Weekend Program, nurses will work four 12-hour shifts in a two-week period, but they will get paid for 72 hours rather than 48.
“To enhance the flexibility of this program, nurses can split the weekend shifts with a coworker, and this program will really be focused on serving in our greatest need areas first and in our greatest time frames first,” Hoff said.
The compensation under the new OU Health Travel at Home Program is a traveling nurse model without any overhead. It allows nurses the option to choose a higher hourly rate in lieu of benefits unless required by law.
Finally, the OU College of Nursing Degree Accelerator Program will provide scholarships to the college and continue with its tuition reimbursement program to any accredited nursing program.
Nursing students can receive tuition reimbursement of $5,250 per year for any accredited nursing program, or they can apply for scholarships in three different degree programs, including a registered nurse to bachelor's in nursing, a master’s in nursing administration, and a post-master’s doctorate in nursing practice focused on nursing administration.
“This will be just the start of additional measures to ensure the health of nursing here at OU,” Brigida said. “This leaves me encouraged that the future of nursing at OU is bright.”
