Addressing the Nurse Retention Crisis—Leveraging Policies Supported by Evidence

Abstract

Using survey data from registered nurses who participated in the Michigan Nurses' Study, Friese and colleagues 1 evaluated patterns in the employment plans of nurses in 2022 and 2023, providing good news for employers and nurses.Declines were documented in the number of nurses intending to leave their current position and reducing their clinical hours.Nurses reported faring better in 2023 relative to 2022, experiencing less burnout, less job dissatisfaction, fewer experiences of workplace violence, fewer instances of understaffing during a recent shift, and less frequent mandatory overtime.These findings signal a welcome shift after several consecutive years of mounting and unprecedented rates of nurse burnout, hospital turnover, and staffing vacancies-yet serious problems persist.Friese and colleagues 1 found that in 2023, 41.0% of nurses still worked understaffed during their most recent work week; 43.4% experienced workplace violence in the past year; and nearly one-third (32.0%) of nurses still planned to leave their employer within the year.The

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