Supporting nurses works: New program in Madison NICU leads to zero nurse turnover in first year

MADISON, Wis. (WMDX) – A new program is helping support those who care for some of our most vulnerable. 

Healthcare workers are increasingly burnt out, especially after the pandemic began in 2020. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2022 shows nearly half of healthcare workers are feeling burnout, and that number has risen 14 percent since 2018. The National Academy of Medicine calls it a crisis. 

“It can be really hard”

In the NICU, there are special challenges as doctors, nurses, and support staff take care of our tiniest citizens. 

“I’ve been at UW Health in the NICU for a little over six years now,” said Grace Long, a registered nurse at American Family Children’s Hospital in Madison. “I started out as a new grad, and I have just loved it so much I can’t imagine doing anything else.”

As much as she loves the work, she’s felt that burnout firsthand. 

“I have even felt periods where it’s like, oh my gosh, I am going to go to work again. I just had a really hard shift, and I have to go to sleep for six or seven hours, and then get up and do another 12 hour shift. It can be really hard,” she said. 

Caring for premies and their families is often complex, especially at a hospital like American Family Children’s. 

“As a level four NICU, we see the sickest of the sick, right? We see babies and families on their very worst days,” Long said. “We see these incredibly complex diagnoses that sometimes we’ve never seen before. So we’re trying to learn about a new diagnosis in addition to taking care of a baby who really needs our help. And so it can be really, really challenging and overwhelming.”

Making changes at the NICU

Nursing managers at the American Family Children’s NICU wanted to try something new. They started by connecting with the new-to-practice nurses, the ones who were recent graduates and completed the 20-week orientation at the NICU. 

That led them to create a program that added extra support. All new nurses were given mentors. Those mentors check in at least once per shift. They can discuss their challenging cases, the new nurses can ask questions, and even get emotional support after watching babies and families suffer. 

On top of that, all nurses now get to work two virtual shifts per week. It’s giving nurses more work-life balance. Plus, they can do a wide variety of tasks from home, often more of the clerical aspects of nursing. They can talk with families, consult with the nurses who have questions, or help with one of the biggest timesucks of patient care: all the documentation. 

“The nurse will pull us up in the iPad and hand us to the family … we’re able to ask the family the admission questions that are so important that we answer, or they can pull us up and kind of put us at the head of the bed and just holler out vital signs for us to document, or holler out if there’s any like skin integrity issues for us to document,” Long said. “We’re able to kind of take those things off the plate that could be kind of the more, I don’t want to see tedious parts of nursing, but just time-consuming.” 

It’s working: no turnover in first year of changes

Before starting this program, there was a 38 percent turnover rate for new-to-practice nurses in their NICU. In the first year of making these changes, they saw no turnover at all. 

“It takes a lot of time and resources to train a new nurse. And so it’s really great when we can keep them on, and keep them passionate about things, and keep them feeling safe,” Long said. “Having as many eyes on the patient situation as possible to make sure that we can provide that [we provide] safe patient care is just so rewarding, and it’s been really rewarding to be able to teach new nurses.” 

Other organizations and healthcare systems could even follow the lead of UW Health Kids and American Family Children’s Hospital. The NICU nurses, including Long, recently presented their new changes at a national conference.