Charge Nurse Fellowship

The charge nurse role is a complex and dynamic position which requires a certain level of nursing expertise. Currently, there is no standard orientation to determine the competency level of charge nurses within the organization. By implementing a Charge Nurse Fellowship, the goal is to increase new nurses' confidence level in the charge nurse role. This is attained by providing appropriate education on relevant topics for a charge nurse, which will increase confidence of the nurses who have been at the organization less than 2 years. The long term goal of the study is to decrease nursing turnover at the organization. The last few years, turnover has increased for the group of nurses less than 2 years of employment. Current literature supports the need of implementing a charge nurse program.;The methods of the study are to deliver a pre- survey to the nurses who had recently completed the GN Residency program at the organization. Those nurses provide demographic information along with answers to basic questions about the charge nurse role. They then attend the Charge Nurse Fellowship which offered information on topics relevant to the charge nurse role as well as interactive sessions, where they role play the charge nurse in scenarios. After the classes, the same group of nurses complete a post survey of questions similar to the pre survey to determine if the classes increased their knowledge and confidence to be a charge nurse. The fellowship resulted in 76.92% of the participants having an increased perception of confidence.