N.B.’s Horizon Health sees 141 registered nurses hired through its refer, reward program – so far

New Brunswickers have likely seen it, advertised on YouTube, in various social media and out in the community.

For two years, Horizon Health Network has been pushing its ‘refer, reward, repeat’ program, to see if the community could help in its recruiting efforts.

And administration says it’s working.

“I'm really surprised with the number and the volumes. And I applaud the efforts of our community and our employees for getting involved in that way,” said Kerry Kennedy, Horizon’s director of talent acquisition.

The program, launched in June 2022, rewards people with $1,000-$2,000 if they refer a registered nurse, nurse practitioner or physician to Horizon, who is then successfully hired.

Half of the reward is paid out when the nurse or physician is initially hired, the other half after they’ve been working for 12 months.

Anyone can refer – including Horizon employees.

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The health network only recently added physicians to the program, so it wasn’t able to provide the number of doctors who’ve been hired, but Kennedy says, so far, 260 doctor referrals have been made.

And, over the program’s two years, 141 registered nurses have been successfully hired from these referrals, which means Horizon has had to pay up – $105,000 has been spent on the rewards, including $17,000 so far this fiscal year.

Kennedy said that’s more than OK with the health network.

“People refer those that they know and there's little networks and communities that exist out there. So people start talking about where they work. People talk about the community in which they live, and they celebrate that and share it with people that they know. And it's been very successful in getting, you know, supporting our emergency room recruitment,” she said.

The reward for referring nurses who are specialized in emergency departments or critical care units, or physicians, is $2,000. The reward is $1,000 for nurse practitioners and other registered nurses.

Kennedy said ER specialties are some of the most difficult to recruit, but that it’s also been difficult to find allied health professionals, like physiotherapists, social workers and lab technicians.

“There's 150 different types of positions that we support,” she said. “There's lots in behind the scenes, not as frontline, that are equally as important to moving this entire entity forward.”

Kennedy said the program will continue for as long as they have these vacancies.

During the first quarter of the year, Kennedy says Horizon has been able to hire about 40 per cent of this year’s recruitment target. Broken down, they’ve reached 38 per cent of their target for physician recruitment.

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