Methods to Assist With Reentry

Recently retired physicians, nurses, respiratory therapists and others should be able to easily take on the roles they successfully managed pre-retirement. For those who have been retired for a longer time, creative integration can allow returning personnel to assume less rigorous roles that still provide relief to current physicians and staff. Such examples include:

• For a re-entry nurse who is uncomfortable taking a full assignment, have this person team with an existing nurse, at least initially.
• Infection prevention is an even more vital function during the pandemic, and perhaps re-entry professionals can be educated quickly to support this increasingly vital activity.
• In at least one hospital, returning nurses took responsibility for vaccinating physicians and other front-line care providers, making it unnecessary to pull currently employed nurses from their units for this purpose.
• Another hospital offers re-entry nurses a “boot camp” to prepare them to be nursing resources on the patient floors, where they can give medications, turn patients, start IVs, ambulate patients and perform similar functions to support busy staff.
• For those returning physicians unfamiliar with a hospital’s EHR system, a nursing assistant or scribe could temporarily be assigned to help with documentation issues.
• Given that teleradiology permits radiologists to read, interpret and document images from home, retired radiologists willing to perform this function would permit interventional radiologists to spend more time on invasive procedures.

Paul B. Hofmann, DrPH, LFACHE, is president of the Hofmann Healthcare Group, Moraga, Calif., and co-editor of Managing Healthcare Ethically: An Executive’s Guide, published by Health Administration Press (hofmann@hofmannhealth.com). Douglas Van Houten, RN, is a retired assistant CNO, stroke program coordinator and ICU nurse (dvanhouten54@gmail.com). He holds critical care registered nurse and certified neuroscience registered nurse credentials.