Report measures nurse managers’ impact on health system performance

Nurse managers who interact purposefully with each registered nurse on their team have lower turnover, with monthly interactions such as recognitions, check-ins or corrective actions driving a 7-percentage-point improvement in the team’s annual turnover rate, according to a new report by the American Organization for Nursing Leadership and Laudio Insights. The report also evaluates key factors influencing a nurse manager’s capacity for meaningful team engagement, such as the number of people who directly report to them, widely known as a manager’s span of control. Inpatient nurse managers who oversee 78 people or more consistently have above-average RN turnover rates, based on data from Laudio’s software platform for frontline leaders.

“Nurse managers have one of the hardest jobs in health care,” said AONL CEO Robyn Begley, AHA’s chief nursing officer and senior vice president of workforce. “They have 24-hour responsibility caring for their nursing team and patients. Nurse leaders can use this data to make operational adjustments in real time to support these vital frontline leaders.”