NYC Health + Hospitals employees celebrate their Pathway to Excellence with Distinction designation.
What you probably already know: Nurse retention and turnover is a significant issue in health care. Nationally, the turnover rate of registered nurses hit 16.4% last year, while only 98,000 were hired, a 5.6% add rate. Turnover affects quality of care and creates financial pressure — it’s estimated that every registered nurse hired saves $79,100. One health system in New York City, however, says it has saved a staggering $88 million by drastically reducing nurse turnover. NYC Health + Hospitals’ turnover rate this year is only 7.3%, far below the national average and an impressive turnaround from its 46% rate as recently as 2019. The system, the largest public health care organization in the nation, employs 9,600 nurses. About 85% of nurses across the U.S. are women.
Why? NYC Health + Hospitals has launched numerous internal and collaborative retention and recruitment efforts. Among them is a professional development and staff engagement initiative centered around a year-long nurse residency program that has enrolled more than 2,600 nurse residents. It took steps to involve nurses in systemwide decision-making processes, developed programs designed to promote outstanding nurses and support professional growth, and established several fellowship programs to help nurses develop new skills. It also created several events recognizing nurses for outstanding care. Its partnership with City University of New York helps place new, highly trained nurses throughout the system’s 70 care locations.
What it means: The system has hired more than 3,400 nurses this year alone, replacing many temporary nurses and saving more than $150 million in recruitment costs. Patients are now served by permanent nurses who live in the community with deep institutional knowledge of the system’s mission. It’s worth noting that these changes took years to pay off: In 2021 turnover was 17.3%. It was 15.3% as recently as last year, still below the national average but more than double that so far in 2025. “Nurses are the heart of every hospital,” says NYC Health + Hospitals President and CEO Mitchell Katz, M.D. The robust investment is meant “to show our nursing workforce how important they are to us.”
What happens now? NYC Health + Hospitals showcases its nurses on its The Remedy podcast (now in its second season) and in a section on its website called “Insider.” The podcast recently aired an episode, “Helping Healers Heal,” in which it detailed efforts to offer support services to system staff. It noted that half of health care workers in the U.S. don’t feel valued by their organization, but NYC Health + Hospitals staff satisfaction increased 47% between 2020 and 2023. An Insider report described a day in the life of an emergency department pediatric nurse. “It is an honor for me to be part of the oldest hospital in America and one of the largest in the United States,” says the nurse, Mayra Sucupira del Oliveira. “For many, this may seem insignificant, but for me, it represents the culmination of all my sacrifices.”
— Story by Rob Smith
[email protected]
