Preview
Creation Date
10-2017
Description
Mentoring is emerging as an important tool in many facets of modern healthcare, especially nursing. Formal mentorship programs are still uncommon in today’s healthcare organizations but, in light of retention issues with nursing and anticipated shortages of nurses in the years to come, experts are calling for more mentoring in a more formal way. High quality mentors can assist with retention and ease transitions for new staff from both a professional and social perspective and can promote emerging nurse leaders. The right mentors and the right training are important, but well-developed mentoring programs also include buy-in and support from the organization in order to achieve the desired results. Nurse mentoring’s importance has already been recognized by the American Nurses Credentialing Center Magnet Recognition Program, the Institute of Medicine’s Future of Nursing Initiative and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and will only become more imperative in the future. Our department will begin offering mentoring training to determine if providing new nurses with a mentor will improve retention rates within two years of implementation.