During a press conference, Mayor Eric Adams announced that NYC’s Citywide Nurse Residency Program has achieved a new major milestone.
According to Adams, the city-led program has successfully trained 5,000 new registered nurses since it started back in 2019.
Having been established at over 28 health care facilities throughout NYC (including 18 NYC Health + Hospitals campuses), the country’s first city-led nurse residency consortium has provided on-the-job training and other support to recently-graduated, newly-hired registered nurses.
Since the program began, the mayor says that it has reportedly helped hospitals to improve their retention numbers, including participating NYC Health + Hospitals (H+H) campuses, which collectively holds a nurse retention rate of over 96% — a mark that greatly supasses the national average of 84%.
“The Nurse Residency Program provided structured support and opportunities for me as a new nurse,” said Wendy Zhao, staff nurse at NYC Health + Hospitals, South Brooklyn Health, and a graduate of the Citywide Nurse Residency Program.
“I entered the residency program as an associate’s degree nurse, and I emerged from it with my bachelor’s degree; this past summer, I completed my master’s degree in Nursing Education, receiving top nursing honors from the College of Nursing at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University. The early encouragement and lessons in evidence-based practice and research from the residency program were major contributors to my success.”
The health care-focused initiative is part of Adams’ “Working People’s Agenda,” which aims to create jobs and aid in New York City’s economic recovery.
The mayor says that the program’s success delivers on a major health care component of his city-wide plan, which is to “support 30,000 current and aspiring nurses over the next five years as they enter the nursing workforce, stay in the profession, and climb the career ladder.”
“By providing hospitals with the resources they need to train and retain their nursing staff, our Citywide Nurse Residency Program has allowed us to make significant strides in improving health care for New Yorkers and making New York City work for working people,” said Adams.
“As we saw in 2020, nurses are essential to keeping New Yorkers healthy, and our investment to help nurses go from the classrooms to a hospital room will help keep New Yorkers healthy and prepared for the future.”
