By the end of the year Rochester Regional Health is hoping to recruit up to 100 nurses from around the world to work across its system.
The health care network has partnered with the Greater Rochester Chamber of Commerce to tap into a program called Greater ROC Global, which was launched in conjunction with an organization called inSpring.
The Great ROC Global initiative will hire experienced international nurses for RRH with hopes of them staying permanently.
“We're building our community and building our diverse community of nurses from around the world,” said Dan Ireland, RRH executive vice president and chief nursing executive. “They typically stay engaged with us up to a three-year agreement. So they're not in and out quickly.”
Ireland said building up the workforce in this region requires more than what he calls “home growing” nurses and “dependency on travel nurses.”
He said the health system hires somewhere close to 400-450 nurses a year, including within rural areas. Agency or travel nurses fill most of those positions, Ireland said, but this recruitment program, he said, will be more cost effective.
“When you think about rural hospitals, there's a very thin margin between what we make revenue wise and what we have expense wise,” he said. “Higher costs in, let's say agency nursing, has a greater impact. It can't be absorbed as well.”
Rochester Regional chief executive officer, Richard “Chip” Davis, said in a news release that the system is attempting to reduce its reliance on agency staffing by rebuilding its “internal core of bedside nursing expertise.”
Ireland said the institution has already placed 16 international nurses within its rural hospitals.
