MacNeal Hospital in west suburban Berwyn recognizes that nurses function best with conditions that meet their needs for professional growth, work/home balance, convenient location and competitive compensation, so flexibility is a key in creating an environment to support nurses in their career choices.
Clinical advancement, management opportunities
Bedside nurses have valuable input and experience to bring to patient care, and MacNeal provides multiple avenues for professional growth, including promotions and financial rewards for nurses who choose to pursue a direct patient care career. MacNeal invests in the nurses by encouraging and providing for advanced degrees, certification and clinical ladders to challenge and recognize achievements.
For example, whether a nurse decides on a clinical or management track, the hospital provides a convenient on-campus educational registered nurse to Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree program in affiliation with Lewis University; it’s a program in which staff are currently enrolled.
Shared governance
Staff input is supported and valued at MacNeal. Through open dialogue and collaborative inclusion on multidisciplinary committees affecting clinical outcomes, R.N.s are consistently involved in decision making and implementing change that demonstrates improved quality of care through participation on education, professional practice, quality and collaborative practice committee work.
Scheduling options
In the current nationwide nursing shortage MacNeal gained a competitive edge through BidShift, an innovative Web-based staffing model. BidShift enables the hospital to address core scheduling issues that satisfy nurses’ quality-of-life concerns while ensuring proper staffing.
Using BidShift, nurses at MacNeal have the opportunity to view all open shifts and enter their individual requests to work those openings. This offers greater flexibility in scheduling based on today’s lifestyles—including single parenthood, juggling two-parent schedules and coordinating career and education goals. Now MacNeal nurses can use BidShift to plan their ideal schedules from their home computers.
Coaching, mentoring, support
Through coaching and mentoring, clinical leaders can actively shape the future of their own working environment by helping train future colleagues. For example, through alliances with academic institutions like Loyola University, fourth-year nursing students have an opportunity to transition from student to employee with a 13-week focused work experience on one unit of their choice. Here they are partnered with a nurse who works with them exclusively to help them succeed and bridge the final work-study experience.
Another standout program is conducted in the operating room, where a full-time nurse educator works with nurses who want to transfer to this specialty. This significant recruitment and retention tool benefits both the nurses and the hospital because future employees are oriented during a trial period and are able to get comfortable with organizational styles, practice skills, modus operandi and unique personalities on the unit, optimizing their potential for success.
A teaching arm of the University of Chicago, MacNeal Hospital is affiliated with 11 health care centers, behavioral health services, occupational health services, rehabilitation services, and home health care, which provide nursing career opportunities in a variety of settings and specialties.
For more information about careers at MacNeal, call (708) 783-9100 or visit career opportunities.