At UnitedHealth Group, nurses play a wide variety of roles, with many as likely to be working in disease management or answering advice lines as providing traditional care. Hoping to expand their skills further, UHG has begun offering business training to nurses, offering classes on topics like budget planning and macroeconomics.
The training, which is offered by UHG's Center for Nursing Advancement, is intended to help nurses understand better how their decisions affect the cost of care. It's also intended to help with retention, as many of UHG's 6,000-odd staff nurses have struggled to transition from a hands-on care setting to their new role, leading to high attrition.
Not only will such training assist nurses in their work at UHG, it's likely to put them on good footing for future positions as well, as more nurses are taking on executive positions or starting their own practices, observers say.
To learn more about this strategy:
- read this Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal piece
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