New Nurse Residency Program at MountainView Regional Medical Center

Juan Corral
Las Cruces Bulletin

Editor's note: This story was updated at 9:30 a.m. April 24th.

With thousands of nursing jobs in New Mexico going unfilled, MountainView Regional Medical Center launched a new 12-month nurse residency program in March with 13 people in the cohort. The new program was implemented to encourage students in the medical field to remain local and find employment in the rural areas. 

As of last fall, the nursing shortage was estimated by a University of New Mexico study to have reached over 8,000 vacancies. Troy Clark, executive director of the New Mexico Hospital Association, told the Bulletin that a separate study conducted by the New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions found more than 5,000 nursing vacancies. He said that, regardless of whether the number is more than 5,000 or more than 8,000, the nursing shortage in New Mexico is worse now than it was during the COVID-19 pandemic.

MountainView Chief Nursing Officer AJ Stephens highlighted the need for nurses in southern New Mexico, not just Las Cruces. 

“Accredited nurse residency programs are the gold standard for transition to professional practice and yield higher nurse satisfaction, decreased nursing turnover, improved quality outcomes, and decreased healthcare costs,” Stephens said. 

He said that the program is built and structured to have in-person education and in-person training with actual supervision at the patient’s bedside.  

“We have a mentorship piece, so every resident is assigned a mentor. But whenever you get into training, you have a preceptor who is supervising your work and following you as you take care of patients and the mentor is separate but someone who is coaching and guiding you,” he said.  

The MountainView Nurse Residency Program adheres to the American Nurses Credentialing Center's Practice Transition Accreditation Program (PTAP) standards, which help give nursing graduates the tools in the RN workforce and contribute meaningfully to the healthcare community. 

MountainView Chief Nursing Officer AJ Stephens said the program will also help differentiate between real world experiences and classroom settings.  

Stephens is very passionate about nurse residency programs as it was his doctoral project and says it is “absolutely the gold standard for entry to practice for nurses.” 

“The program also aims to enhance clinical decision-making, critical thinking, and leadership abilities, as well as promote professional development and lifelong learning,” he said. 

He added that the nurses meet with coaches weekly with a goal to find what their best performance is and where they may need a bit more work.  

“I did a bit of research and read an article where 15 hospitals implemented nurse residency programs and saved $15 million dollars in turnover costs in their first year. There are substantial cost savings to hospitals. That first six months is one of the most difficult times to retain nurses,” he said. 

Stephens said getting a nurse after the year mark is where nurses may start to feel more confident and comfortable.  

In addition to the current shortage, the number of registered nurses has an expected growth of nearly 3,000 jobs between 2022 and 2032, according to a 2024 annual report by the New Mexico Health Care Work Force Committee

“We’re going to need another 1.2 million nurses by 2030, that’s only four and a half years away so pretty big nursing shortage in the country. The average age of a nurse in the country is 46 and in New Mexico it’s 47.8. You look at that age and our dependency on new graduates to back fill these positions and growing needs is where the pipelines coming from,” Stephens said.  

Clark agreed and added that the “magic” is keeping people interested in the health field locally rather than recruiting nurses out of state.  

“We are in a health care shortage, during the pandemic it was at its height and its worse,” Clark said. “During the later 2023, early 2024-time frame, a number of the nurses across the country who decided to go be travel nurses and not stay in one location, many of them returned home and said they did not want to live on the road anymore.”

Clark said that there has been a decrease in the number of contract numbers seen in New Mexico.  

“So, it’s been a shift back to permanent employed nurses, but we still are short. Many of our hospitals are still utilizing contract labor or agency nurses, just not to the extent that they were because a lot of the positions are still vacant, but the number [of vacancies] has not decreased,” Clark said.  

Many nurses during the pandemic would leave to assist in areas that Clark called “hotspots” where a health care crisis existed to work a 13-week contract before traveling to the next hospital.  

He also said nurses would simply take the travel positions for better pay. Although, they were short periods of time, the pay was much more than they made when staying in their hometown. But they also did not receive benefits.  

“There were a number that wanted to take advantage to pay their mortgage, student loans but many of them wanted to settle down and not bounce around. Most people in life can do that but many want to have their own pillow at night so to speak,” he said.  

Clark said during a study done in 2016 they found that physicians that were not from New Mexico but were recruited stayed on average for four and a half years.  

If a hospital recruited medical personnel from out of state, but the staff received training in New Mexico, they would stay, on average, for about seven and a half years.  

“The magic was if we found a physician who grew up in New Mexico and did their residency or medical school training here. They stayed in New Mexico on average for 17 years. If you look at that magnitude, whether its nurses, physicians, etcetera, we can spend a lot of time and a lot of money to recruit people to come to our state, but they don’t stay near as long,” Clark said. 

“If we can find those students that are from our state, we recruit them and keep them here, give them a livable wage, it’s a huge benefit because they understand the culture they are in. We don’t have to convince them to like New Mexico because they are already here. Programs like this help keep them local,” Clark said. 

How to enroll: 

If you are interested in participating in the new program you may register at mountainviewregional.com/career-opportunities.  

You may apply to the desired department with several different positions available. Applicants have no later than January and June to apply as program start dates begin in February and July. 

For questions people are asked to contact RN Director of Education, Jessica Hall at 575-556-3257 or email her at jessica.hall@mountainviewregional.com.