University of Iowa Hospitals’ new ‘unit partner’ position addresses workforce, student needs

IOWA CITY — The expansive University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics employs more than 20,000 — including over 5,000 nursing staffers — and still, given its growth and a nationwide health care worker shortage, that’s not enough.

At the start of April, UIHC was looking to fill more than 360 nursing-related jobs, according to a UI employment website — a figure that could swell next year with the debut of its new $525.6 million, 469,000-square-foot hospital in North Liberty. And a search on the UI jobs site for open “patient care technician” positions indicates more than 550 spots available.

“We talk a lot about the nursing shortage,” UIHC nurse manager Jessica McDaniel said. “But we oftentimes didn't talk about our patient care tech shortage.”

Hoping to address the employment demands alongside academic needs for its students-in-training, the university health care enterprise recently partnered with the UI College of Nursing for what could serve as a “win-win-win.” By hiring students for a new “unit partner” position, the university aims to give them “invaluable experience while also supporting the workload of hospital staff and enhancing patient care.”

“The unit-partner program,” according to the university, “provides an extra set of hands to nurses and patient care technicians at the hospital, alleviating demands on hospital staff while exposing students, many of whom are planning careers in health care, to work in a hospital setting.”

  Buy Photo

‘What do you need?’

More than 200 students since the program piloted in 2022 have served as unit partners — supporting both nurses and patient care technicians by, for example, setting up meals, bathing patients, stocking and retrieving supplies, checking blood sugar levels and offering basic patient companionship.

“I love going on walks with patients,” Sachin Fong, 19, told The Gazette. “Some people, they're not able to get up on their own. … They need to have a staff member with them in case they suddenly feel a little lightheaded and need somebody to grab a wheelchair and just put it behind them or follow them or just need a hand to hold on to. You learn so much about people by just walking with them.”

UI nursing student Fong, now a sophomore, started in the unit-partner program last year as a freshman — before the experience gave him the confidence to advance into a patient care technician role. Today, in the job giving him direct patient assignments, Fong works four days a week for a total 20 hours, while also balancing a full academic load.

His hours were about the same as a unit partner — a position he found almost accidentally during freshman orientation, having already determined his nursing major. In seeking starter opportunities to work at the hospital, Fong — before classes even began — was surprised to receive two offers. He could jump right in as a patient care tech or start as a unit partner.

Being new to college, the state and patient care, Fong opted for the less intimidating unit-partner option — allowing him to make his own schedule of two- to 16-hour shifts on any days that worked for him.

“You can schedule yourself as much as you want, it's flexible with school, and you're allowed to basically assist anybody,” said Fong, from Napverville, Ill., where his dad worked as a cardiovascular intensive care unit nurse. “You can assist nurses, sometimes physicians, any radiology technicians. You’re able to assist with and help with just day-to-day stuff.”

Fong waited only three weeks into classes before starting as a unit partner. A typical shift for him would involve simply walking in and looking for ways to help.

“I don't have to say, today I'm going to stock, or today I’m going to talk to patients,” he said. “It’s just whatever people need help with. It can be little things like your patient has a nurse-call button on. You could walk in and be like, ‘Hi, how's it going? What do you need?’

“And then you can walk around — I always do loops around our unit — and I'll just check in with all the nursing assistants and nurses, and I'll be like, ‘Do you guys need anything?’”

Fong said he appreciated the option of non-patient-involved tasks — at least initially. “As a beginner, I was kind of nervous,” he said. “I was like, I don't know if I'm ready to be assigned patients.”

Over time, though, he gravitated toward those he said improved his patient-interaction skills.

“You can help with a patient who might be feeling lonely — just saying, ‘Yeah, let me go sit down and talk to them’,” Fong said, reporting those tasks helped him to “just be able to walk into a room and feel comfortable doing it.”

  Buy Photo

Recruitment

The path Fong took — to eventual patient care tech — is one the program hopes to emulate with others, according to Dan Lose, UIHC nursing director of Medical Surgical Services.

“Part of our aim is to build relationships with students in the hope that they want to stay in Iowa after graduation,” he said. “We’ve got almost 75 students who have been with us a while now and are close to graduating, so we hope to convert some of them to (registered nurse) staff.”

The pilot cohort in spring 2022 involved 18 students, with another 116 joining in fall 2022. Of the more than 200 who’ve participated since its inception, more than 90 percent were still working at the hospital six months after their hire.

“The College of Nursing gets students from all over the country,” Lose said. “So we're not seeing people immediately become registered nurses, but I think that's part of the long-term hope of this program — is that it builds that relationship and trust with people. When it comes time to pick their first nursing job, they want to work for and continue on the team they built that relationship with the last two or three years.”

The program currently has 40 to 50 unit partners, Lose said. And while it’s open to students of all majors, about 80 percent have come from the College of Nursing.

In fact — in an effort to remove traditional employment barriers for new students juggling coursework — Lose said they’ve streamlined the application process by attaching notices to College of Nursing acceptance letters.

Instead of a full application and interview process, students can send in resumes. And instead of requiring 40-plus hours of orientation common for patient-care techs, student unit partners can start right away.

“Our students couldn't give 40 hours a week,” he said, “So often we would get people who wanted to help and join our team in September, but they couldn't really start until December — when school was on break.

“So this position, this program allows them to join our team in September,” Lose said. “Then if they decide ‘I do want to become a patient care tech’ … then they would complete that in December or January when they’re on break.”

Although unit partners are paid, they earn less than patient care technicians.

“We knew we had to create a gap between the higher level role that has more responsibilities,” Lose said.

“We’ve received tremendous feedback from our staff about how helpful and beneficial the unit partners are,” nurse manager McDaniel said. “What has surprised me is how much the addition of unit partners to our team has increased our morale and teamwork.”

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com