Critical Care Nurse Retention in the Intensive Care Unit and the Impact of COVID-19

Abstract

The critical care setting has the higher rate of turnover more than any other specialty setting in the country. Nurse retention in the critical care environment is becoming a significant problem in the hospital setting and with COVID-19, the need for critical care nurses is greater now than ever before. Turnover is a significant problem in the critical care environment and can lead to a negative outcomes for patients. Empowerment of nurses can help to reduce the impact of role strain and can be beneficial for retaining nurses in all care settings. Leadership needs to come up with incentives to help improve job satisfaction in the critical care setting. Nurses lacking satisfaction in their career can lead to increase incidence of burnout and turnover. Loses due to turnover can prove very costly to the overall growth of an intensive care unit. COVID-19 has had a significant impact on the critical care setting. Nurses have been pushed to the breaking point every day due to the volume of high acuity patients and the lack of adequate staffing to help support nurses to provide their best care. In the Evansville area, nurses have been consistently understaffed and the availability of ICU beds are harder to come by. Some units have been sending pray cards and other words of encouragement to ICU nurses and some nurses have been flexed to the intensive care unit to help to improve staffing. It will be interesting to see how retention and job satisfaction are impacted as we progress through the COVID-19 pandemic and how leadership works to keep nurses feeling empowered during this challenging time.