NYC Health + Hospitals on March 19 launched "Nurses4NYC" — a major recruitment effort that aims to fill positions across three of its hospitals.
The recruitment campaign highlights a range of efforts meant to support new nurses, such as a one-year nurse residency program, tuition reimbursement, loan forgiveness and nursing fellowships. Later this year, the system is debuting a critical care nursing fellowship. It also offers a 22-week emergency department fellowship program for nurses with no clinical experience in the ED.
Over the past few years, NYC Health + Hospitals has grown its nurse residency program to six times its original size, and has since seen the retention rate for new nurses double to nearly 92%. All new hires across the system's 11 hospitals, along with primary care, post-acute and behavioral health sites are automatically enrolled in the program.
The New York City-based health system currently employs 9,600 full-time and part-time nurses.
Leaders with the organization, which is the largest public health system in the nation, have previously said nurse hiring will remain a top priority throughout the year as it looks to reign in travel nurse expenses. Last year, the system reported $150 million in expenses tied to travel nurses that were not included in its budget. During a preliminary budget hearing earlier this month, H+H executives told New York City Council leaders that the system is still spending a "tremendously large number" on travel nurses, though did not share how much it has spent on staffing expenditures so far this year.
Last summer, the city reached a "historic" contract with the New York State Nurses Association that matched pay levels with the private sector. Since then, the system has hired 850 permanent RNs and continues to gradually reduce its reliance on travel nurses.