AONL and Laudio Release New Report Measuring the Impact of Nurse Managers on Health System Performance

Findings Provide Novel Evidence on How Manager-Team Engagement Affects Nurse Retention

Laudio and the American Organization for Nursing Leadership today announced the release of the inaugural Quantifying Nurse Manager Impact report, which delivers insights on the impact of nurse managers on health system financial outcomes and key factors that can impede this impact.

Leveraging Laudio’s unique data set, the report provides first-of-its-kind data on the influence of leader-team member engagement on nurse retention – a pervasive and costly challenge for health systems nationwide. The analysis showed nurse managers who have consistent, purposeful interactions (e.g., check-ins, recognition) with their team members have statistically significant lower registered nurse (RN) turnover. In a team with average turnover, one purposeful interaction per month per RN drives a seven-percentage point improvement in the team’s overall annual RN turnover rate.

The report also evaluates key factors influencing a nurse manager’s capacity for meaningful team engagement, such as span of control, which ultimately hinder the health system’s financial outcomes. The analysis shows a median span of control of 46 people for inpatient nurse managers, with those in the top quartile overseeing 78 people or more. Across six major specialties, managers in the top quartile consistently have above-average RN turnover rates. Larger span of control is also associated with higher incremental and overall overtime use, furthering driving up labor costs.

“Nurse managers have one of the hardest jobs in health care. They have 24-hour responsibility caring for their nursing team and patients,” said Robyn Begley, CEO of AONL and chief nursing officer, SVP of workforce at the American Hospital Association. “Nurse leaders can use this data to make operational adjustments in real time to support these vital frontline leaders.”

The Laudio data set spans over 50 acute care hospitals and hundreds of ambulatory sites across the US. It includes over 8,000 managers and 100,000 employees at health systems.

“At a time when all health systems are looking to make evidence-based decisions to support their workforce, this report provides new data to inform their strategies around frontline team design, resourcing, and manager enablement,” said Tim Darling, President of Laudio Insights. “We are proud to collaborate with AONL on this work.”

The organizations will present the report findings on April 10, 2024 at AONL’s annual conference in New Orleans.