Hospitals Prescribe Unorthodox Remedies to Lure Nurses

Recruiters at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach give out book covers and T-shirts sporting the hospital’s name.

St. Jude Hospital and Rehabilitation Center in Fullerton offers $500 nursing scholarships.

And Martin Luther Hospital in Anaheim has created an in-house “registry,” allowing its nurses to work flexible hours for extra pay.

These are some of the strategies that county hospitals have adopted recently in a bid to lure nurses to their staffs.

Three years after the nursing shortage began, “Hospitals are doing anything and everything they can to get nurses and retain them,” said Arthur Sponseller, vice president in charge of human resources at the Hospital Council of Southern California.

Dennis Gaschen, director of public information at St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, said: “It’s almost, ‘Tell us when you want to work, where you want to work.’ ”

For all the difficulties, the situation appears to have eased slightly, according to the California Assn. of Hospitals. In Southern California, the vacancy rate for nurses this spring was 8.7%, which is 1% less than the rate of a year ago, according to a recent survey by the group.

And a few county hospitals say they can easily pick the nurses they want. At Childrens Hospital of Orange County recently, there were 24 applicants for just five nursing openings, reported Mary Marical, nurse-manager of neonatal intensive care.

“I think it’s because pediatrics is such a specialty area,” she said. “There are nurses wanting to work here.”

But elsewhere, hospital officials said, nurses can do the choosing, at salaries ranging from $30,000 to $50,000 a year.

“There’s still a problem for hospitals and any health-care employer--insurance companies, health maintenance organizations and anybody that needs to recruit nurses,” Sponseller said.

At some hospitals, the shortage of nurses has changed the nature of the job.

For instance, Saddleback Hospital and Health Center in Laguna Hills hands out bonuses for extra nursing courses and gives nurses a choice of benefit packages. And nursing assistants now supplement the work, emptying bedpans or changing beds so nurses can focus on the patients, said Paul Henry, a Saddleback vice president of human resources.

Martin Luther Hospital has a similar program. A nurse has traditionally been responsible for “so many little housekeeping chores”--passing out food trays, doing menus--said Maureen Zehntner, the hospital’s executive vice president.

“We’re looking at unburdening her from those activities” and starting a pilot program that treats her as a professional, she said.

And some hospitals have decided to guarantee their own supply of nurses. Besides passing out student loans, five hospitals have underwritten the pay of a nursing instructor at Golden West College in Huntington Beach.

“They’re paying the salary and benefits so the program can take in more students,” said Venner Farley, associate dean and director of health professions.

But even with the added enrollment, all Farley’s new graduates “are snapped up right away,” she said.

Hoag also targets students--reaching below college into local high schools. Several times a year, buses hired by Hoag bring 30 juniors and seniors to the hospital for a career day breakfast, a film on health care and tours focusing on radiology, respiratory therapy and nursing.

These are “seed planting efforts,” Hoag nurse recruiter Pam Butzke said. “We’re trying from a young age to let schoolchildren know what career opportunities we offer.”

After just two years of tours, it is too early to tell how the program is working, but Butzke hopes that it will show results.

“There is still a nursing shortage. At the moment, we’ve got 50 to 60 vacancies, and I wouldn’t say we’re a real poor-paying hospital,” she said.