Transcript recruitment and retention

RESULTS OF BRAINSTORMING
SESSION –
RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION
Chairs: Karen Stewart
and Susan Pilbeam
Topic Areas Assigned
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Recruitment
Retention
Teaching Students
Credentialing Issues
Compensation
Protocols
Recruitment or Retention Solutions?
 It became evident after
reviewing the responses that
– many of the solutions cited under
retention were actually
recruitment solutions and vice
versa.
– There was repetition between
the groups
Recruitment - Problems
Lack of visibility of the profession
Negative Impact to students by
“burned out” therapists.
Difficulty in identifying potential
student pool.
Lack of professionalism by current
therapists.
Resources for recruitment
Generation gap.
Recruitment Solutions
We (current generation of therapists and
current leaders of the profession)…need to
exhibit our pride in the profession – “I am
a respiratory therapist!”
Recommend this profession to your
children.
Johnson and Johnson does public
advertising on television for nursing, why
not the manufacturers of Advair or
Serevent provide ads to promote RC.
Bumper Stickers
Public Places – wearing your name
badge! Banks, grocery line, restaurants,
rental car agencies
Web courses and other accommodations
by the programs.
Closing plants and businesses. Talk to
their recruiters to help place individuals
desiring retraining.
Within Hospitals
Promote staff membership and their active
support to AARC and state society.
Managers must be members of the AARC
and serve as a model.
Talk it up. Encourage membership.
Reward staff members who join: Better
shifts, requested off days, etc.
Promote research, abstracts and find a
way to pay staff travel to conventions.
Personal contact and follow up with
potential students or employees
Solutions for Recruitment
Discuss the recruitment problem at the
advisory committee meeting.
Seek input from hospital directors
Form an alliance with clinical sites for
recruitment efforts (combine resources,
both financial and personnel)
Flyers in allergists’ and pulmonologists’
offices
Hospitals provide scholarships to students
with work agreement (George Gaebler,
Management Bulletin, Jan-March 2003)
Hospital giving opportunity for students to
work (based on state license) – but not
mundane tasks.
More Recruitment Held
Have students help with high school
presentations (especially their own
H.S) and health fairs.
Graduates to speak to high school
guidance counselors about the
profession.
Local media – someone did something
special.
Want ads help a lot
Recruitment Strategies
Strategies: Career fairs at hospitals;
Finding student needs (Lynn Capran
Central Florida Model)
Change starting dates of programs to
attract potential nursing, paramedic,
physical therapy applicants.
Change ending date to correspond to
peak hospital employment season –
end of summer.
Negative Impact to students by
“burned out” therapists.
Negative Impact to students by
“burned out” therapists.
Communicate with them about their
attitude.
 Ask the staff if they continue their
negative approach, how can we address
current staffing problems in RC
departments.
 Do not accept a bad attitude – one rotten
apple spoils the who batch.
 Avoid student placement with these staff
members.
 Use the “gung ho” therapists to help the
burned-out with ideas.

Negative Therapists (cont.)
Ask staff how to improve the image of the
profession.
 Let the staff help solve problems
 Schools can find “star” hospitals and use
them as an example.
 Therapists who are assigned as preceptors
should be evaluated for their effectiveness
as preceptors (annual evaluation – using
student input in the process)

Retention
Identity crisis
Job satisfaction
Self representation
Student caliber
Low pay
Bad attitudes on the part of staff
Lack of managers networking and support
Lack of excitement in the field
Retention Solutions
Increase staff identity with uniform dress code
and large print name tags.
Hand out cards to patients with RC department
and phone number.
One exam/one title
Adapt Disney “Guestology”
Hospitals promote the profession – directions to
the RC department, employee of the year,
patient comment rewards
Give them a clinical ladder of promotion – more
skills, more pay.
Retention Solutions
Put clinical instruction as part of job
description
Hand pick clinical mentors
Faculty to walk the walk…clinical time
teaching or working; participate in
recredentialing exams
Strong advisory boards
Remove deadwood – faculty and hospital
staff.
Retention Solutions
Financial incentives
Community involvement – communication
Courtesy
Management techniques and communication
with employees
Hospital based scholarship programs
State society scholarships (vendor support?
State seminars just for students.
Credentialing - Problems
Graduates from advanced level programs
are not taking the RRT and CS.
CRT and RRT receive same pay in many
institutions. Pay less and get the most.
Little or no differentiation in clinical role
between the two credentials.
Test preparation may be deficient.
Expense an issue for some.
Issues in Teaching
• Discrepancies between book way and the
hospital way.
• Staff is torn between teaching and workload –
what is the priority. (The patient. Who is paying?
Clearly define roles)
• Improper use of technology.
• Student lack of professionalism and work ethics.
• Communication is No. 1 problem—unclear
expectations.
• Rewards for both students and staff?
• 50-50 responsibility (school-hospitals) – or who
teaches and who pays. ($)
Issues/Problems in Teaching
• Using students as free labor.
• Difficulty in accommodating students.
• Lack of desire/time of hospital staff to be
instructors.
Teaching -- Solutions
• Books, in general, try to be well references and
evidence based – they represent the ideal.
Hospital practice expedites delivery of health
care requiring modification of the ideal.
• Students give incomplete information which
results in communication conflicts between staff
and program faculty, which may never be true or
be verbalized. Nip it in the bud.
• Provide clinical staff lectures and bring them into
labs? –CEUs, new techniques, etc. Also train
preceptors using inter-rater reliability.
Teaching -- Solutions
• Bring in vendors for lectures/labs – staff
and students.
• Schools responsibility to give objectives
(communication) and hospital to ask what
else student’s need (communication).
Improve contact between DCE and clinical
instructors.
Solutions in Teaching
• Role model preceptors.
• Scholarships.
• Creating a professional clinical
environment.
• Adequate training for clinical instructors.
Staff may be interested, but not
fundamentally prepared to teach.
Solutions in Teaching
• Hospital director should take ownership of the
process.
• Program faculty need to set clear expectations
for students and make clinical instructors aware
of them (communication).
• Consider liability issues – student gets workload,
staff takes a coffee break, something goes
wrong…
• Consider how the students are grouped: all at
the same level or bright ones with slower ones.
Teaching Solutions
• Send educators through clinical rotations with
students or work PRN every month or so.
• School responsibility is didactic and hands on
• Hospitals responsibility is to refine skills, train in
department and hospital organization, learn time
management, etc.
• Management’s responsibility to welcome
students, provides model for staff behavior.
Possible Solutions-Two Credentials
Review the difference between the two
credentials.
Use self-assessment exam prior to actual
computer exam.
Reduce the cost or ask for subsidy from hospital
or school (program expense?)
RC Department to impose a time frame for
passing or reduce pay or terminate.
Celebrate the RRT at the hospital level.
Schools promote the advanced level.
Vary the job differences: CRT floor care and
RRT unit or specialty areas.
Compensation
Compensation for clinical instruction
(hospital provided).
Compensation for students.
Compensation for educators (school)
Compensation for clinical
instruction.
Monetary compensation
– Paid by school
– Merit pay by employers
Provide CEUs to staff
Instructors gain CEUs for teaching
Tuition reimbursement or using school
facilities, fitness facilities, libraries, as a way
to repay hospital staff.
Recognition
– Awards
– Job titles
Compensation for Students
Preview employment setting – specialty
areas.
Job offers
Scholarships
Equipment donations from hospitals to
school labs
Distant sites provide some housing
arrangements.
Compensation for Educators
Get students
Get equipment
CEUs from hospital-based presentations
Clinical Instructors may be groomed for future
teaching positions at schools.
Guide for Husband-toWife Communication
• Dangerous –“Should you be
eating that?!”
• Safer –“You know, there are a lot
of apples left.”
• Safest –“Can I get you a glass of
wine with that?”
Protocols - Problems
• Problems related to differentiating
between protocols and procedures.
• Differences between what protocols
hospitals implement and what
students are learning.
• Lack of communication between
managers and educators regarding
protocols.
• Patient assessment skills and
critical thinking skills are needed.
Students need to be independent
thinkers.
• For that matter, so do staff.
Protocols - Definitions
• Definition from Carl Mottram
• Procedure
• One person
• Defined start and stop time
• One task without a long process
• Protocol
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•
•
•
More than one person
Across a time span
Several activities
Flow chart
Protocols - Solutions
• Differentiate between what
protocols hospitals implement
and what students are learning.
• Hospitals need to implement
protocols and staff need to follow
them.
• Protocols must be reinforced in
both settings.
• Clinical Instructors must be
aware of protocols and how to
Protocols - Solutions
• Staff therapists must reinforce
protocols with students as being
important.
• Students (and staff) need to be
independent thinkers.
• These skills must be taught from the
beginning of the program and
reinforced throughout.
• Skills need to be reinforced in the
clinical setting with both staff and
students
Protocols
• Developing/coaching critical
thinking and decision making in
students.
• Increased responsibilities and
independence
• Reinforce correct decision making
• Quality of students – raise the
standards
• Weave critical thinking into all
didactic courses
• Leads to self confidence.
Protocols
• Communication and team work
from preceptors and school
faculty using the best individual
resources.
• Teach and reinforce
interdisciplinary team work and
communication
Protocols
• Combine book knowledge and real
life experience: combine strong
didactics with time
management/realistic workloads.
• Learning and developing individual
styles and workflows
• Rotate students through multiple
preceptors to show different styles
and different workflows.
In Conclusions – Hang in there
Remember the lessons you learned in
kindergarden
Be nice to each other
Share your toys
And hang in there