Hospitals in Florida are employing several strategies to both retain their nurses and recruit more to mitigate the ongoing shortage that is straining the healthcare profession.
These incentives include sign-on bonuses, significant increases in their base salary, and an evaluation of their workplace environment, which looks at ways to maximize the overall team that supports care at the bedside within the hospital, leverage technology to reduce administrative burdens on nurses and other staff, and efforts to look at career pathways to encourage nursing assistants or nurse technicians to become registered nurses, said Mary Mayhew, president and CEO of the Florida Hospital Association.
A former nurse at PIH Health Hospital Whittier is suing her ex-employer, alleging she was discriminated against and then terminated in 2021 because she objected on religious grounds to being tested for the coronavirus.
Myla Lindroos was at the end of her shift Saturday night when a patient tackled her and kicked her in the stomach, she said.
Lindroos, a registered nurse at Rutland Regional Medical Center's emergency department, said she had her back against a hospital gurney. She later found a bruise on her back the size of the gurney's metal rail.
The patient, an unhoused woman who refused to be discharged from the hospital, had aimed for Lindroos' pregnant belly, Lindroos said.