NEW ORLEANS – Demolished hospital facilities, an exodus of healthcare workers and a skyrocketing number of people requiring urgent care are part of the legacy of havoc that Hurricane Katrina dropped on New Orleans.
Now, the volatility of living in the recovering city has made nursing there a difficult career choice.
“This is by far the worst and most prolonged shortage that we’ve been in,” said Nancy Davis, senior vice president and chief nursing officer for New Orleans-based Ochsner Health System.
Since the 2005 storm, Ochsner has lost many nurses because of such issues as disrupted schools and daycare centers and unaffordable home insurance rates.
“Even now, we’re still seeing a lot of nurses’ spouses being relocated to Atlanta, Houston or wherever,” Davis said. “The nurses don’t want to leave, but they have to.”
New Orleans had a nursing shortage even before Hurricane Katrina, Davis said. “But now, everybody has more out-of-pocket expenses, and there is such a demand for nurses that we’ve seen a huge wage spiral (upward).”
Some hospitals are offering as much as $8 more per hour than average rates to attract nurses, she noted. But Ochsner isn’t using wage incentives, instead hoping to attract nurses who want to make a career at the hospital.
“We have found that it’s much more important to put our money into retention than to be on the front end of recruiting,” Davis said. “You’re chasing your tail if you aren’t focused on retention.”
“It’s not that we aren’t looking at our hourly rate, but we’re not putting all of our eggs in that basket,” she said. “It doesn’t help you maintain a stable workforce when you (start trying to attract) people with more money.”
Ochsner aims to entice nurses by offering an enriched environment.
“We’re a magnet hospital,” Davis said. “That means good ratios, a lot of autonomy, shared leadership and strong interdisciplinary experiences.”
The hospital has worked to make sure nurses have a safe and reasonable workload and increased its clinical rotations into New Orleans-area nursing schools, Davis said. For several years, Ochsner has funded a program to reward retention for nurses in preceptor roles.
Additional efforts have included storing equipment in areas that reduce walking times, using a phone system that enables direct contact with physicians, installing automated medication dispensing machines and automating documentation procedures.
“We’ve found that focusing on making our hospitals the best environment to practice nursing, even though it’s not the fastest way to fill vacancies, really pays off,” Davis said.