Nurses specializing in critical care handle the most severe cases in hospitals. Typically, they undergo additional training beyond their initial four-year nursing education to work in intensive care units (ICUs). During the COVID-19 pandemic, shortage of ICU-trained nurses led to non-ICU-trained nurses having to care for these patients. Anecdotal evidence suggests following the pandemic, many ICU-nurses have resigned because they experienced significant moral distress due to feeling unprepared to provide safe and ethical care. This has worsened the shortage of ICU-trained nurses particularly at Abbotsford Regional Hospital.
The federal Chief Nursing Officer released a toolkit on nursing retention, but its recommendations are broad, thus tailoring to suit specific practice environments is needed. We propose this convening and collaborating grant to bring together ICU-trained nurses and managers to brainstorm strategies tailored to retain ICU-trained nurses. We will develop an evidence-informed, nurse centred implementation research roadmap to support the recruitment and retention of ICU-trained nurses within Fraser Health, with a specific focus on Abbotsford Hospital due to its rural location and unique challenges.