Top 12 Nursing Stories of 2010

3. Ten Ways to Increase Nurses' Time at the Bedside

Bedside nurses are occupied in non-patient care tasks for a quarter of their shifts. Nurses lose three hours of patient care every 12-hour shift to non-direct care tasks, such as redundant paperwork and regulatory requirements. Some reports estimate nurses spend as little as 30% of their time with patients. Here's how healthcare organizations can help their nurses spend more time in patient care.

4. 'Onboard' New Nurses to Prevent Them from Jumping Ship

"Onboarding" new graduate nurses helps them overcome the reality shock of transitioning from school to practice. More than simply orientation, onboarding is the process of embedding new employees into the culture and ensuring they not only become productive employees, but that they become emotionally invested in the organization.

5. Nurse Residency Programs Pay For Themselves

Related to onboarding, nurse residency programs help new graduates make the difficult transition from school to practice and can help end the all-too-common fact of new grads leaving their first job within the first year. Similar to physician residency programs, the intent is to continue education, mentoring, and support to enable novices to become competent practitioners. They can also save hospitals vast sums of money.

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