Importance of Preceptor Competency and Its Role in Orientee Satisfaction and Retention

Importance of Preceptor Competency and Its Role in Orientee Satisfaction and Retention

  The role of nursing preceptor has become increasingly challenging especially in acute care settings such as Adult Blood and Marrow Transplant.  Preceptors must possess a variety of skills  to meet the needs of their orientees especially the new graduate nurse.   Healthcare organizations can spend upward of $50,000 on an individual nurse’s orientation.  Research has shown that “the key to improving recruitment and retention is the quality of an organization’s orientation program, and a well-prepared preceptor is key to ensuring the quality of the unit-based orientation”.  (NNSDO Trendlines, July/Aug ’09).  Two years ago several trends were noted in our unit’s new graduate nurse population.  The first was an increase in the extension of unit based orientation.  The second was an increase in new graduate nurses leaving the unit within the first year of employment.   For those reasons a Performance Improvement Task Force was created and a preceptor improvement initiative was implemented.   New graduate RNs were surveyed within the first year of their hire date to evaluate their satisfaction with unit based orientation.  The largest deficits were related to preceptor experience and competency (satisfaction=2.5 out of 5).   A core group of preceptors was then established and competency evaluated. Information from this evaluation prompted   the task force to work in conjunction with the hospital education department and the department of oncology to develop  required competencies, which included online preceptor modules (SWANK Healthcare), Mosby’s Preceptor Modules and hospital based basic, advanced and oncology preceptor education.  The task force re-surveyed new graduate RN’s approximately 1.5 years following the preceptor improvement initiative.  Improved satisfaction was noted with the overall orientation process especially related to preceptors (satisfaction=4.0 out of 5.0; increase from 2.5 out of 5).   The unit had also retained ALL new graduate RNs (7 of 7) hired since the preceptor initiative was implemented.   We hope that by sharing our initiative others will recognize the importance of investing in the education, development and continuing support of preceptors.