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Nursing shortage looms due to shortages of faculty
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Gordon Potter, right, receives a shot from nurse Wendy Nesheim during the first
of several clinical trials of a new H1N1 flu vaccine conducted by Emory University.
(AP Photo/John Amis)
Just as looming physician shortages and ballooning medical expenses threaten to bring down the entire American health care system, images of other serious shortfalls in numbers of nurses sharpen into focus.
Predictions fluctuate, but a 2007 estimate by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates one million new or replacement Registered Nurses will be needed by 2016. The Health Resource Service Administration says “to meet the projected growth in demand for R.N. services, the U.S. must graduate approximately 90 percent more nurses.”
Nursing will enjoy the highest percentage of job growth (up 23.2 percent) over the next seven years of any occupation. America’s nursing schools now graduate around 70,000 R.N.s annually. About two thirds come from two-year community programs and from hospital-based systems. The remaining third have earned Bachelor’s degrees (B.S.N.s) at four-year institutions.
As of early 2009, the American Hospital Association said the current R.N. shortage was 135,000 nationally. In February, as the nation lost a half million total jobs, health care overall created 27,000 new nursing positions.
Worse news, a demographic shift is going on. While the average age of R.N.s is now about 44 years old, the baby boomers are approaching retirement age and will require more nurse services. The limitation on providing services is not the number of available applicants – almost 28,000 qualified, but were not admitted to schools – but number of qualified instructors available, facility space, and clinical opportunities for training.
Along with flat nursing school growth is a growing decline in the number of B.S.N.s who are choosing extra schooling to achieve a Doctorate in Nursing Education and teach. Teaching nursing skills does not pay well enough to lure the best people.
Congressional hearings have examined the shortage, and more hearings are planned on the scarcity of health workers, but solutions may be expensive and long in coming. The American Hospital Association has proposed legislative steps that would require tens of billions of dollars.
They suggest money be redirected by adjusting Medicare reimbursement rules relating to wages for hospital employees. Passage is not very likely in an environment where American Health Care is already twice as expensive as the rest of the industrialized world?
Next: Allied technical personnel
As America searches for solutions leading to a reformation of its own health care system, knowing the successes and shortcomings of health care regimes in other developed nations will be essential in negotiating the most palatable and efficient design for all concerned. This series attempts to connect the dots and explode the talking points in hopes that the folks who actually have a vote might come to a conclusion.
Al Portner is a former daily newspaper editor and publisher in seven states and author of the forthcoming “Mark Twain and the Tale of Grant’s Memoir.” Portner is also the proprietor of The Assignment Desk, LLC and provides writers, editors, and photographers for numerous kinds of contract projects from proposals and speeches to public relations and journalism. Reach him at alanportner@gmail.com.
For more info:
Nursing shortage fact sheet
Addressing the nursing shortage
Nursing faculty shortage imminent
Hospitals Alarmed at Shortage of Nurses and Pharmacists
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