News: 67% of nurses plan to exit current role in 3 years, survey shows

Staffing remains one of the top challenges for hospital executives throughout the pandemic and will likely continue over the coming years. In a survey published by Critical Care Nurse back in August, the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) found that 67% of nurses plan to exit their current role within three years. In relation to this, 60% of nurses in a ConnectRN poll said they don’t believe enough is being done by their employers to address ongoing shortages.

Most recently, an October report from Definitive Healthcare found that 333,942 healthcare providers dropped out of the workforce in 2021—including more than 117,000 physicians and 53,295 nurse practitioners—due to retirement, burnout, and other pandemic-related stressors. As staff shortages are projected to continue impacting the healthcare sector, hospitals and health systems have been looking for innovative solutions.

One solution that has worked for some hospitals are internal staffing agencies, which can save health systems money on fees that external agencies require. For Trinity Health, a health system based in Livonia, Michigan, their internal staffing agency initiative helped the system deploy nurses and other clinical specialists to hospitals in need during the pandemic.

“We saw a huge opportunity to create our own staffing agency, which includes about 2,000 nurses,” said Mike Slubowski, CEO of Trinity Health. “It was very helpful at points where we needed external support and it was a way to retain nurses who were going to leave because they were seeking more flexible arrangements.”

Slubowski referenced Trinity’s internal staffing agency as one of the key initiatives the health system  is relying on  to improve its financial performance in the next year. Other health systems that have done the same include Pittsburgh-based Allegheny Health Network, Philadelphia-based Jefferson Health, Atlanta-based Piedmont Healthcare and Detroit-based Henry Ford Health.

Editor’s note: To read this topic covered by Becker’s Hospital Review, click here. To read the AACN report, click here.