This initiative, which will unite up to 10 or more agencies, will create efficiencies and significantly enhance the recruitment and retention of these key positions, ensuring that our rural communities have access to high quality healthcare.
Johanna L. Beliveau, DNP, MBA, RNVisiting Nurse and Hospice for Vermont and New Hampshire (VNH), a Dartmouth Health member, will play a key role in an effort to help train, recruit and retain nurses in the region. In collaboration with the Home Care, Hospice & Palliative Care Alliance of New Hampshire (the Alliance), VNH will be tasked with uniting and growing area agencies and coordinating the expansion of the New England Home Health Nurse Residency Project with the support of a $150,000 federal grant. The funding, which is disbursed by the U.S. Department of Labor, was secured in a recently-signed congressionally directed spending bill by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH).
“Home health agencies face significant challenges recruiting and training new nurses, particularly in rural areas,” said Johanna L. Beliveau, DNP, MBA, RN, CEO and president of VNH. “This initiative, which will unite up to 10 or more agencies, will create efficiencies and significantly enhance the recruitment and retention of these key positions, ensuring that our rural communities have access to high quality healthcare.”
The New England Home Health Nurse Residency Project is a direct workforce training program that aims to recruit and retain newly graduated nurses in home health agencies across New Hampshire and Vermont. Nurses with either an associate degree or bachelor’s degree qualify for the program. A goal of the project is to grow the project’s membership from the four agencies that participated in a previous pilot program to at least 10 over the course of the 24-month expansion effort. VNH will be the lead partner and the program will be overseen by a Nurse Residency Advisory Group consisting of three to five nurse leaders from participating agencies. It will also create a new master’s level nurse educator position, employed by VNH, who will supervise the development and implementation of the residency program curriculum.
The program will create a virtual residency curriculum for recently graduated nurses to complete the program online while serving any of the partnering agencies. A virtual program, alongside the preceptor programs at each agency, will make it easier to recruit residents and help fill staffing needs in rural areas. The goal is to recruit up to two nurse residents per agency for each 12-month academic cycle.
The grant is administered by the Alliance, a nonprofit membership organization whose mission is to educate, connect and advocate for home health care organizations. There are currently 24 Medicare-certified organizations in the Alliance that could potentially participate in the residency program.
About Dartmouth Health
Dartmouth Health, New Hampshire’s only academic health system and largest private employer, serves patients across New England. Dartmouth Health provides access to more than 2,300 providers in nearly every area of medicine, delivering care at its flagship hospital, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) in Lebanon, NH. Its network of hospitals, outpatient centers, clinics and home care facilities, spans a broad geographical area. Year after year, DHMC is named the #1 hospital in New Hampshire by U.S. News & World Report, and is consistently recognized for high performance in numerous clinical specialties and procedures. Dartmouth Health includes Dartmouth Cancer Center, northern New England’s only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers and one of less than than 60 total nationally; Dartmouth Health Children’s, which includes the state’s only children’s hospital (Children’s Hospital at DHMC/CHaD) and more than 20 locations around the region; eight member hospitals in Lebanon, Keene, Claremont, Hampstead, and New London, NH, and Windsor and Bennington, VT; Dartmouth Health Home Care; Dartmouth Health Connected Care Center for Telehealth, serving patients as far away as Texas; and more than 30 primary and multi-specialty clinics across New Hampshire and Vermont. Through its partnership with Dartmouth College, Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine and the White River Junction VA Medical Center, Dartmouth Health trains nearly 400 medical residents and fellows annually and performs cutting-edge research and clinical trials with international impact. Dartmouth Health and its more than 16,000 employees are committed to serving the healthcare needs of everyone in the communities it serves and to providing every patient with exceptional, state-of-the-art, personalized care. Learn more at dartmouth-health.org.