Return on Investment for a Perioperative Nurse Fellowship

Abstract

In 1998, Inova Health System, Falls Church, Va, implemented a perioperative nurse fellowship program to train nurses to fill a large number of vacancies in Inova ORs. The educators at Inova did not have data to determine whether the program was cost-effective, so they conducted an analysis of the program's return on investment (ROI). This article reviews the steps they took to ascertain the program's costs and benefits. Computing ROI presented a clear financial rationale for the creation and maintenance of the periopeative nurse fellowship program.