Background: Mentoring newly hired nurses can improve nurse retention and socialization within an organization. New hire orientation programs that includes mentoring have led to improved patient outcomes, patient satisfaction, and patient safety. Foreground: Presently, a nurse orientation program at a small, rural hospital does not offer formatlized mentoring program due to lack of resources and intermittent hiring of staff. Implementation of a mentoring program would provide a consistent and appropriate nurse orientation. Evidence-Based Practice Framework: The Model for Evidence-Based Practice Change was used as the framework for the project. The theoretical models used were Benner’s Novice to Expert theory and Adult Learning theory. Methods: An e-mentoring program was developed by the principle investigator (PI) in coordination with the hospital’s nursing leaders. The objective of the project was to implement an electronic mentoring or e-mentoring nursing orientation program. Newly hired nurses participated in the e-mentoring program and interacted with an assigned mentor during the project. The new nurses completed the Nurse Competency Survey (NCS) to assess improvement in competency. The participants completed both a pretest and posttest in an anonymous online format. Results were reviewed using descriptive analysis. Results: Four newly-hired nurses participated in the project. The pre-program scores on the NCS were 55%. The post-program scores from the NCS showed a reported increase of 32% in competency to an overall score of 87%. Conclusion and Recommendations: Findings showed that the inclusion of formalized mentoring within a new-hire nurse orientation program was beneficial. The comparison of the NCS results before and after the program demonstrated and increase in self-assessed nursing competency by the participants. Recommendations to maintain the system change included the addition of more e-mentoring modules and support for the hospital staff.
