Yaira Kurtzman, BSN RN

Improving Patient Care While Decreasing Costs: The Benefits, Barriers, and Student Perspectives on Nurse Residency Programs

Tags: decreasing costs Floating graduates improving patient care new graduate nurses nursing nursing school nursing students patient care student perspectives violence

Many professions have long since realized that a vast divide exists between the classroom and real-world practice and, thus, have mandated transitional programs. Nursing lacks such an intermediate step as part of its professional training although new nurses are pressured to provide both safe and competent care to increasingly complex patients without any transitional support. To fill this gap many institutions have begun to implement their own nurse-residency programs [NRPs]. However, since not all institutions have introduced such transition-into-practice programs barriers must exist. Nationwide, NRPs are shrouded in confusion, false perceptions, and concerns that hinder their implementation. This manuscript was compiled to help shed light onto the reasons for the lack of implementation and provides evidence of the importance and overall benefits for such programs. Personal perspectives are also provided from the authors in order to gain a nursing-student perspective about these transitional programs.