How a cost-containment initiative produced recruitment and retention

The Maryland Perinatal Education Consortium (MPEC), a 12-hospital education initiative, provides basic didactic education for perinatal nurses. The MPEC core curriculum integrates patient-specific cultural and age-related considerations for both the novice and experienced perinatal nurse. While the primary goal for developing the consortium was to maximize use of the nurse educator's time by pooling educational resources between participating hospitals, member hospitals have discovered that it also resulted in advantageous positioning for recruitment and retention of nursing staff. MPEC's pooled turnover rate of 14% is below the national average of 16%, resulting in important cost savings and additional staff for participating hospitals. This article describes the development of the MPEC and uses the Nursing Executive Center's model of turnover costs to describe the cost savings and retention impact for various-sized hospitals achieved through MPEC's multihospital collaboration in staff development.