Transitioning Nurses: How Do We Know They Know?

Knowing when newly hired nurses are ready for inclusion in productive staffing is a challenge for nurse leaders in all practice settings. Health care organizations dedicate extensive resources to prepare new graduate nurses, nurses transferring from one specialty to another and experienced nurses joining an existing workforce in a new setting. However, the duration of “orientation programs” varies greatly across the country. Some are as short as 4 weeks, and others may be as long as a year. It is critical that organizations create or purchase an evidenced-based tool to understand and guide decisions relative to the relationship between length of orientation time and the nurse's readiness to practice independently.