Illinois Business Journal - Critical Skills Shortage Initiative targets RN training and retention

When David Stoecklin and William Hanke of the Madison County Employment and Training Department pulled together a focus group of local hospital administrators, human resource directors and college representatives to discuss the shortage of registered nurses in Southwestern Illinois, it was a real eye opener for some of those involved.

"It was my first time to realize that it was not a supply issue," said Tina Kristoff, manager of human resources for Alton Memorial Hospital. "It wasn't that there were not enough students interested in going into the programs; it was that the colleges were not able to take in enough students as the hospitals needed."

In 2001, the Madison-Bond County Workforce Board and the Mid-America Workforce Board united to hire Workforce Associates Inc. to do an analysis of the Southwestern Illinois workforce. One of WAI's findings was a need for more RNs. The focus group was a logical outgrowth of that study to more specifically identify the problem, identify its causes and formulate solutions.

Timing was good, as Gov. Rod Blagojevich announced the availability of grants to address shortages in critical skills - the Critical Skills Shortage Initiative - through his Opportunity Returns program.

The focus group identified two concerns, according to Stoecklin.

"The first item of importance to all of them was RNs," he said. "A lot of times, RNs were younger women who would graduate from Lewis and Clark Community College, Southwestern Illinois College or Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and be lured to the limelight of St. Louis - going to work at Children's, Barnes-Jewish or Saint Louis University Hospital, for example. Two or three of them would get an apartment together, work over there and enjoy the amenities of the city," Stoecklin added.

The second problem the group identified was a lack of supervisory skills.

"The employers told us that one of the critical skills that a lot of their staff was missing was supervisory and management skills," said Stoecklin. "They had a lot of their best workers who were promoted up the line but didn't have the management skills to be a good boss. They thought they were losing people, because a lot of times the primary reason a person will leave a job is because of the boss."

Based on these findings, MCET submitted a CSSI application to the state to fund a three-pronged solution: Project BEST (Basic and Effective Supervisory Training), a program to provide supervisory and management training for RNs currently working as supervisors in area hospitals; Project HEAL (Health Education Alliance), a program to train an additional 40 RNs over the next two years; and Project RENEW (Returning Nurses to an Educated Workforce), a program to bring back RNs who have left the profession.

Stoecklin said the strategy was twofold.

"We wanted to do two things," he said. "Expand the capacity of the programs at the community colleges and try to attract a non-traditional student, someone who already had experience working at one of the hospitals�an older, more mature and stable individual� someone who had roots in the community and wasn't likely to take his or her RN and new-found earning capability and move it across the river."

While not getting everything they asked for, Blagojevich did announce a grant of $615,000 to fund the program on April 25. Since then, MCET has hired a project coordinator; identified most of the 377 RNs who will undergo management and supervisor training; and selected most of the 40 incumbent workers who will attend either SWIC or LCCC to attain their RN degrees.

Lynette Rienbolt, director of the Center for Training Innovations at SWIC, said that they had already been doing some management and leadership training in a local hospital and knew how important supervisory training was.

"It's all well and good to get more RNs prepared to go into the workforce," Rienbolt said, "but one of the leading causes of turnover is dissatisfaction with a supervisor. As people are promoted, if they are not given the people skills to manage people, you are going to lose those RNs anyway. So we advocated for including this leadership and management training. It wasn't enough to just address the shortage of RNs - we had to address retention."

Thanks to the grant, SWIC already has supervisory training programs in place or in planning for eight of the 10 hospitals in its district, according to Rienbolt.

SWIC also moved quickly to implement Project HEAL. According to Julie Muertz, dean of allied health for SWIC, 12 students have already begun the program and are scheduled to graduate next year.

Alton Memorial is taking advantage of both Project BEST and HEAL. "We have some employees that are signing up to become nurses at Lewis and Clark," Kristoff said. "They took their tests in January and will be beginning in the fall. All of our managers, supervisor and team leaders are participating in leadership development training through the grant at Lewis and Clark."

Stoecklin said another issue that surfaced through the process was that of nursing instructional staff. Unlike the state of Missouri that requires only a bachelor's degree in nursing to teach, the state of Illinois requires a master's degree, he said.

According to Lucy Chappee, Critical Skills project coordinator, finding a master's-level nurse to teach is a real problem.

"Once they get that kind of education, they are snapped up into the administration of these healthcare institutions and they're paid considerably more than what's available teaching at a community college," Chappee said.

The program was designed for a three-year term with full funding in the first year; half funding in the second and no funding in the third. But, Kristoff believes it will pay dividends well past the expiration of the program.The dialogue that began with the focus group has also started gears turning to try to solve the problem outside of the grant program.

"We (Alton Memorial) have master's-prepared nurse managers," Kristoff said. "Some of their time could be spent in being a faculty member for the colleges. It's really important that we share some of our people with the schools, and it's very encouraging to me to see our managers are excited about that opportunity. It was very worthwhile to get everyone in the same room. I think the long-term outcome of this could make a large difference for our whole region."