The Nursing Career Advancement Program (NCAP) at Texas Health Resources, powered by StaffGarden’s Grow Platform, is finding success in boosting program growth, nurse participation, and turnover reduction. We spoke with Julie Holland, program manager at the Department of Clinical Excellence, to find out how Texas Health uses NCAP to create a culture of recognition and community building towards organizational goals.
Between the first and second full years of program implementation, Texas Health saw application numbers nearly double.
Nurses who participate in NCAP are 74% less likely to leave Texas Health compared to those who are eligible but do not participate.
As a large 29-hospital system spanning 16 counties, Texas Health uses Grow to provide consistent accessibility, visibility, and connectivity at scale.
“[Leadership] has real-time access to how the program is growing in their entity or in their hospital.”
“We've actually infused [NCAP] into our professional governance structure… It gives us an opportunity to talk about various professional development activities that we could then include into our NCAP program.”
Julie Holland, DNP, RN, NEA-BC
Program Manager, Department of Clinical Excellence, Texas Health Resources
Texas Health Resources wanted their Nursing Career Advancement Program (NCAP) to provide a greater culture of recognition and opportunity to their nursing workforce. In the search for a better platform to host NCAP that could provide consistent accessibility, visibility, and connectivity at scale, Texas Health chose StaffGarden’s Grow.
As a mobile-first digital platform, Grow makes Texas Health’s NCAP program easy for nurses to use while also providing robust reporting capabilities and visibility into the workforce for leadership.
Program Manager at the Department of Clinical Excellence at Texas Health, Julie Holland, says the goal of NCAP participation growth is made actionable thanks to real-time program data from StaffGarden.
By folding professional development activities across the organization into NCAP, senior leaders are more in tune with the content of the program than ever before.
StaffGarden makes accessing and inputting activities easy for nurses to complete from their devices. A digital program opens a world of possibilities for reporting, program customization, and data connectivity across Texas Health.
Among committees, StaffGarden’s shared data cloud not only improves visibility and ease-of-approval for all parties involved in NCAP, but also helps to encourage a mutual commitment to NCAP facilitation across the organization.
The ability to break down program metrics by location encourages friendly competition among CNOs and program leaders, and Holland is able to access and export ladder participation reports as related to organizational goals.
“Having the shared platform is helpful. We were on paper before and that's just not [as effective]... A shared platform where [committees] can review and approve is very key.”
“It is a goal for the Chief Nurse Officers this year to increase their ladder participation, so this type of information will help them and, of course, the business case. I love that [report] for ladder participation and how valuable that is to the turnover.”
Julie Holland, DNP, RN, NEA-BC
Program Manager, Department of Clinical Excellence, Texas Health Resources
These are just a couple of the many features that allow StaffGarden Grow to fulfill Texas Health’s goal of greater nurse recognition by expanding nurses’ career growth options, rewarding hard work, and communicating leadership support for nurses’ professional development via NCAP.
Between the first and second full years of StaffGarden implementation, Texas Health’s NCAP program nearly doubled in size.
The percentage of eligible employees participating in NCAP at Texas Health also tripled between the first and second full years of StaffGarden implementation.
Holland attests that not only has the program grown, but that internal survey responses concerned with Texas Health’s professional development offerings have improved as well. Texas Health is in the process of exploring the correlation between nurse-driven participation and patient outcomes, but patient outcomes have shown improvements in the same time span.
“New hires are eligible, they can even start their application before they actually meet their hours. [There’s] been some education on our part, to let folks know that they can go ahead and apply even before they meet the minimum criteria, and so maybe they've started their applications a little earlier. We are trying to reach them [with] the right timing of information.”
Julie Holland, DNP, RN, NEA-BC
Program Manager, Department of Clinical Excellence, Texas Health Resources
New hire participation at Texas Health, defined as the participation among eligible employees that have been at the organization for less than 18 months, saw a dramatic increase.
Between the first and second full years of StaffGarden implementation, new hire participation jumped from 0.21% to 6.12%.
Holland attributes this leap in participation to a shift in the way Texas Health introduces NCAP to new hires, explaining that despite being eligible, new hires often aren’t ready to join NCAP the moment they’re hired. By encouraging NCAP application around six weeks to three months after hiring, applying to NCAP seems more within reach.
“Quarterly we do a system-wide recognition… [with] close to 18 locations participating and we have a representative from each one. We meet together quarterly just to … look at data from participation rates, and sometimes we'll go over the quarterly review with them. The more information we can give [Magnet leaders], the more they can help drive [NCAP] at the hospital.”
Julie Holland, DNP, RN, NEA-BC
Program Manager, Department of Clinical Excellence, Texas Health Resources
Texas Health uses NCAP data from within StaffGarden to find recognition opportunities. Across participating hospitals, system-wide recognition efforts on a regular basis enable timely recognition and transparency of changes to the program to be communicated between Magnet leaders, program administrators, and nurses.
Now that Texas Health is able to effortlessly capture and report on NCAP data, leadership is able to focus on creating a culture of recognizing one another by putting energy behind regular, reliable recognition efforts at every level. This is how Texas Health is working to make nurses feel truly rewarded for the hard work they do every day.
These efforts have resulted in a more united engagement of Texas Health’s nursing workforce. Holland reports that employees are participating in more community-building efforts than before.
“Our overall nurse retention rate has definitely stabilized and improved this past year now that we're looking at this engagement in the career ladder… The less effort that we have to put into replacing staff, the more effort that we can put towards driving goals... which is always patient experience and patient outcomes.”
Julie Holland, DNP, RN, NEA-BC
Program Manager, Department of Clinical Excellence, Texas Health Resources
With NCAP now seeing greater program growth and participation post-StaffGarden implementation, Texas Health’s ultimate goal of better patient outcomes via stability in the workforce is coming into sharper focus.
Nurses who participate in NCAP are 73.71% less likely to leave Texas Health Resources compared to eligible nurses who do not participate. Coupled with incredible program growth and adoption, the positive impact in terms of stability is clear to leadership.
The transparency, recognition, and professional development opportunities like NCAP offered by Texas Health not only provides stability and recognition for nurses, but allows a greater focus on driving customer needs, adding new service lines, and more.
StaffGarden’s Grow Platform provides real-time program data and in-depth reporting which has led to significant program growth and nurse retention for Texas Health Resources.
By starting with nurse input on timely recognition and setting goals at the leadership level to promote NCAP, Texas Health has been able to use StaffGarden’s Grow Platform’s mobile accessibility to create a culture of recognition across the organization.
Ultimately, embracing a digital NCAP helps Texas Health to achieve workforce stability and retention, greater participation in professional development and community-building among nurses, and make progress towards improving patient outcomes. Texas Health truly leads the way in data-driven nurse recognition and retention.
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