Nursing is one of the fastest growing career opportunities in Kentucky and across the United States. At KentuckyOne Health we welcome and reward nurses in a range of experience and specialty areas to join us in our vision of bringing wellness, healing, and hope to all in Kentucky.

We are pleased to have recently completed a highly successful campaign focused on recruiting new nursing talent and helping our current nurses extend their careers. Our 2015 We Are One Campaign exceeded our expectations and will make us even stronger in delivering care. In just three months we hired more than 400 new registered nurses, beating our goal of 300, and had 43 percent of our registered nurse workforce commit to at least two or four years of additional service with us.

We attribute this success to a number of factors, not only the exciting incentive bonus and updated compensation scale, but also the opportunity to deliver innovative and impactful care to the community through our mission-driven organization.

Multi-Year Compensation

Our nurses are on the frontlines of patient care, making important decisions and engaging with patients and families, often in very emotional situations. KentuckyOne Health recognizes the importance of our nurses and we are committed to rewarding them. We have implemented a multi-year compensation strategy, with a focus on frontline care providers, to ensure market competitiveness throughout the organization, including nurses.

We also have implemented new leadership development programs, a pay for performance model and enhanced our rewards and recognition platform. We are committed to investing in our employees and clinical teams to ensure we have the best employees providing the best care.

Nurses play a critical role in the care we provide our patients and the connections we make in the community. Just as the healthcare sector in the United States evolves, so too does the role of nurses. The traditional Florence Nightingale image does not apply in the modern era of medicine. KentuckyOne Health nurses are highly skilled in the range of innovative technologies, they deliver safe and quality care via advanced clinical techniques across a wide-range of specialty care, and they are deeply connected to the individuals, families, and communities for which they care. Our nurses are a key component to our focus on population healthcare and our efforts to break-down barriers to access healthcare across Kentucky.

Collaboration with Universities

We are proud to collaborate with a number of nursing education programs to help foster the next wave of talented nurses in Kentucky. Notably, we have a close connection to the University of Louisville School of Nursing and recently made a $1 million donation to create new, state-of-the-art classrooms which will add to the innovative tools used to train nurses.

Working closely with nursing schools is vital to identify new talent and better understand the evolving challenges and opportunities that modern nurses face. From new medical techniques and treatments to evolving questions of reimbursement, access, and models of care, we are a partner with our nurses today and for the future.

Great Career Opportunities

There is a great opportunity in the nursing field and we strongly encourage individuals of all ages, genders, and backgrounds to consider this career. Data clearly show that the career opportunity is real.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Employment Projections, the registered nurse workforce is expected to grow nationally by 19 percent, from 2.71 million in 2012 to 3.24 million in 2022. In Kentucky, it was estimated in the 2013 Commonwealth of Kentucky Healthcare Workforce Capacity Report that there is need to add more than 5,500 registered nurses in the Commonwealth – representing a 12 percent increase in the total workforce.

-Tanja Oquendo us Chief Administrative Officer and Chief Human Resources Officer at KentuckyOne Health.