A nursing education program invented at Baltimore-based University of Maryland Medical System is showing promising signs, its creators told The Baltimore Banner.
The initiative pairs nursing students with hospital nurses for 12 weeks — a diversion from the usual practice of pairing students up with instructors who don't normally work at the hospitals. The new model is twofold: It introduces working hospital nurses to clinical mentorship opportunities and works to better prepare prospective nurses.
More than two dozen other schools have considered adopting the program, Lisa Rowen, DNSc, RN, senior vice president and chief nurse executive of the system, told Becker's in March.
Twelve numbers on the program and the state's employment data, according to the Banner:
1. About 100 clinical instructors and about 355 students have participated in the initiative. More than half of those participants have been hired as paid student nurses.
2. In June 2022, 27 percent of the system's bedside nursing staff left.
3. The number of registered nurses lowered by about 5 percent from 2018 to 2021.
4. The average nurse practitioner wage fell from $109,000 in 2018 to $105,000 in 2021, and the number of employed NPs declined from 3,700 in 2018 to 3,500 in 2021.
5. For registered nurses, median salaries slightly increased from $76,000 in 2018 among 54,000 employees to $78,000 in 2021 among 51,600.