On December 12, nursing leaders and health experts from across the Toronto Academic Health Sciences Network (TAHSN), came together for the TAHSN Summit: Reframing Strategies for Nursing Retention hosted at Women’s College Hospital, to discuss strategies focused on nursing retention in alignment with the Nursing Retention Toolkit.
“It is paramount that we optimize and enhance the nursing workforce for future generations of nurses,” said Robyn Stremler, Dean of the Lawrence Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing and co-Chair of the TAHSNp committee in her opening remarks. “We must galvanize the ongoing collective action and dialogue that is taking place across our hospitals and ensure we continue to address the retention of nurses at every level.”
The TAHSN Summit featured a keynote address by Canada’s Chief Nursing Officer Leigh Chapman and Ontario’s Chief of Nursing & Professional Practice and Assistant Deputy Minister Karima Velji, alongside panel presentations and rapid-fire sessions from experts across TAHSN.
In her keynote address Chapman highlighted the possibilities for improvements in the nursing profession, and how employers could benefit from the ideas put forth in the Nursing Retention Toolkit, a guidebook she co-developed with nurses and nursing students from across Canada. Some of these high-impact strategies include safe staffing ratios, reducing administrative burdens, and supporting new graduates in their transition to the profession.
Chapman noted that according to recent data from the Canadian Institute of Health Information (CIHI), 59 per cent of early career nurses were considering leaving their jobs by 2023.
“This is an issue we need to pay attention to,” Chapman added.
Bloomberg Nursing’s Professor Linda McGillis Hall’s recent study on the post-pandemic nursing work environment revealed not only that a greater proportion of nurses were considering leaving than ever before, but that many were frustrated by the challenges of training newer nurses as the ratio of senior to novice nurses has increased due to rising vacancies.
Rapid-fire sessions highlight innovative nursing retention strategies
As nursing leaders aim to focus on ways to move forward, members of TAHSN hospitals which included several Bloomberg Nursing alumni, shared their latest innovative nursing retention strategies through a series of rapid-fire sessions.
Karelin Martina (MN 2012) Director, Practice-Based Education; Director, Professional Practice Nursing Resource Team/Unit at University Health Network (UHN) discussed the new internationally educated nurses’ (IEN) onboarding pathway at UHN focused on the transition into nursing practice. With IENs needed to provide care across the health system, this initiative has aimed to apply entry-to-practice competencies and encourage professional development, in addition to fostering psychological safety and cultural humility. The preliminary results Martina shared, demonstrated that the orientation, workshops, and structured coaching, much of which is led by IENs themselves, has improved the confidence and ease of transition into nursing practice.
Bloomberg Nursing alumna Alexandra Harris (MN 2013 & PhD 2018) Senior Director, Nursing Practice & Education, Unity Health shared findings of the Professional Models of Care Practice Project. The project aimed to understand the burden of non-clinical activities on nurses and interprofessional teams within a rehab setting at Unity Health’s Providence site and identify opportunities to optimize roles within the context of model of care redesign to improve staff and patient outcomes. Harris shared that while the survey is still in progress, it has so far highlighted opportunities to reduce administrative burden on clinical teams.
“Most innovation happens on the ground, that is where the wisdom is,” said Karima Velji (MSc 1997, PhD 2006) in her keynote address, also referencing the important work of the many nurse leaders and experts in attendance at the summit.
With the innovative approaches and newly implemented strategies discussed at the summit, the TAHSN network, including the Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing, hopes to demonstrate how the health care system can better value and facilitate nursing work, and ensure improvements in health care for everyone.
