I was happy to receive a manuscript on a home care nurse residency program from authors Nancy Linscheid and Dennia Bell. The article, titled The Journey of a Home Care Nurse Residency Program appears in this issue of Home Healthcare Now. As you well know, home care continues to grow, filling a critical need for safe transitions from acute care to home. Recruiting and retaining nurses for home care can be challenging though.
More has been written about nurse satisfaction in hospital settings, but a 2017 survey of home care nurses by Tourangeau et al. found work environment, supervisor relationship, and pay were significant factors with regard to job satisfaction and intention to stay or leave home care. More recently, Abelardo Garza and Taliaferro (2021) conducted a qualitative study to explore factors that contribute to home care nurse satisfaction. Satisfaction derived from patient care and the autonomous nature of home care nursing practice were identified as factors that contribute to nurse satisfaction. Occupational stressors that negatively impacted satisfaction included the tedious task of documentation, working in unsafe environments (both neighborhood and homes), and challenges related to high turnover among nurses, which results in poor staffing. The participants also acknowledged the important role support from leadership plays with regard to nurse satisfaction.
These studies speak to retaining nurses who are already employed in home care. Another issue is attracting nurses to home care in the first place. I have written about the lack of home care clinical experiences for nursing students in the past. If nursing students are not exposed to home care, why would we expect them to choose this specialty as graduate nurses? We often hear the adage that nurses should work for 1 year in acute care before transferring to home care, but we never hear anyone acknowledge the advantage of nurses working a year on home care before transferring to acute care. Yet I think everyone would agree that the experience of home care would greatly inform nursing practice in acute care settings.
Be sure to read The Journey of a Home Care Nurse Residency Program. The results of the nurse residency program are impressive and should be replicated.
Best wishes,
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