Orientation redesign improves employee satisfaction, retention.

1 Orientation redesign improves employee satisfaction, retention What do you do when your orientation program isn’t effective in educating and retaining OR staff? Carol Pehotsky, MSN, RN, ACNS-BC, CPAN, director of peri-operative education at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, found herself in that position 3 years ago. “We blew it all up and started over,” she says. Pehotsky embarked on both a new role and a new education department. Pehotsky and her colleagues in the education department—Anna Egan, BSN, RN, CNOR; Mary Tighe, MSN, RN, GCNS-BC, CNOR; and Julie A. Cahn, MSN, RN, ACNS-BC, CNOR—implemented the new orientation program in February 2012. More than 90% of the 49 “graduates” were still working in the OR 1 year after completing the program. The program accepts both new graduate nurses and nurses without OR experience. Pehotsky credits their success to a new way of thinking about the perioperative role along with better integration of didactic and practice experiences.