An OR nurse internship program that focuses on retention

Today's health care environment has pushed OR managers to reconsider the skill mix of staff members and to use more surgical technologists and unlicensed assistive personnel, Health care administrators want to decrease the RN: surgical technologist ratio in an effort to cut costs. This financial constraint and the unavailability of experienced OR nurses has created the problem of having enough trained nurses in the OR. One tactic that may prevent the available positions for RNs from being filled by unlicensed assistive personnel is to train more nurses. Training programs organized around optimal patient outcomes may be more cost-effective than training focused on technical proficiency alone. This article describes retention strategies (ie, classroom study, OR training, work with preceptors) used in an OR nurse training program conducted at a southeastern teaching hospital.