Strategies to Recruit and Retain Public Health Nurses: Lessons Learned from New Mexico

Background/Issue:

The New Mexico Department of Health (NMDOH) is a centralized health department responsible for assuring that essential public health and safety net services are available for people living in rural, frontier, tribal and border communities in New Mexico.  NMDOH has experienced challenges in recruiting and retaining nurses and other healthcare practitioners, which has impacted the provision of certain mission-critical services.  

Methods:

NMDOH has established a recruitment and retention task force, led by the Chief Nurse in Public Health, to help fill mission-critical vacancies.  The task force has developed a strategy execution plan (SEP) to articulate the priorities, performance measures, expected outcomes and resources needed for success.  Selected action items include improved advertising of positions, adjustments to compensation and classification, creation of hiring practice efficiencies, use of referral incentives and the development of a more robust onboarding and mentoring process. The taskforce is composed of a cross section of stakeholders to ensure that the SEP is widely adopted and that quarterly milestones are met.  Anticipated challenges include significant nurse and other healthcare practitioner shortages, budget constraints, slow change processes and competing priorities among internal and external stakeholders.  

Results:

Success will be evaluated by examining vacancy and retention rates and dollars spent on contract staff to provide services.  

Conclusions:

By October 2015, the task force will have collected three quarters of data and feedback to present initial lessons learned, conclusions and implications for public health leaders seeking to recruit and retain nurses and other healthcare practitioners in public health settings.