HEALTH
Nine new nurses join Oswego Health: From left, Shaquana Jones, Jaime Thompson, Kristopher Ferrara, Lindsey Hodge, Sarah Fitzgibbons, Emma Teeter, and in front Julia Kingsley.
Training New Nurses
Health systems like Oswego Health offer a variety of incentives to recruit and retain nurses By Deborah Jeanne Sergeant
R
etention is only a part of the strategy for addressing the nursing shortage; training and hiring are also essential. “Hospitals are scrambling to get people to enroll in nursing school,” said George Chapman, owner of GW Chapman Consulting in Syracuse who provides medical practice consulting services to medical groups. “Pay for nurses is good, but it’s a tough gig.” Chapman thinks that improving the work-life balance may be a way to entice more people to consider entering training to become a nurse. However, nurses who work in hospitals will likely always need to work some weekend and night shifts.
Oswego Health recently hired nine new graduate registered nurses. Oswego Health recruited the nurses from local schools, Cayuga Community College, SUNY Brockport, Pomeroy College of Nursing and Excelsior University. Part of Oswego’s draw to new nursing graduates is the health system’s tuition reimbursement program, which provides each participant with up to $10,000 per year toward degrees in nursing. Graduate nurses can also advance their careers through the emergency department residency program, obtaining paid on the job training. “At Oswego Health, our employees are our greatest assets and that’s why we care about reinvesting in them,” said
Marq Brown, vice president of human resources and chief people officer. “If they’re looking to advance their training, we’ll help guide them and pay for it. If they need a more flexible schedule to maintain a work-life balance, we’ll accommodate. If they want to go back to school entirely to pursue a healthcare degree in nursing, medical imaging or laboratory science, we offer tuition assistance programs, customized to help them achieve their dreams.” Oswego Health employs more than 1,300 people among 17 locations in the system. Keeping staffed has been a challenge, as it has been across most of the healthcare sectors. The COVID-19 pandemic only exacerbated the nation’s
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