Factors in the Nursing Shortage

A report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, of Princeton, New Jersey, states that the current nursing shortage in the United States differs from past ones in that it is due to dissatisfaction in the nursing profession and competition from other professions (Anonymous, Current, 2002). Other contributing factors include the aging work-force coupled with a smaller young work force, failure to entice men and minorities to nursing, and women taking advantage of other professional opportunities which were not so readily available to them before. Nursing used to be one of the few professions open to women, but that is no longer the case (Yin, 2002). The National League for Nursing reports that in 2000, enrollment in nursing programs was down 33 percent, and has been declining at a rate of 4.2 percent a year since 1993. The Bureau of Labor and Statistics predicts that by 2010, there will be more vacancies in nursing than in any other profession.

Nurses are dissatisfied for a host of reasons: soaring drug costs and decreasing insurance reimbursements have led to hospitals cutting down on employing RNs to the point that patient safety is threatened; demographic trends are changing; cultural shifts occur in inner cities and elsewhere; and image problems are rising now there are so many other opportunities available to women (Weintraub, 2002; Yin, 2002).

There is currently a 26 percent turnover rate among nurses - the highest in decades - and hospitals are re

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an Health and Human Services (HHS) study which expects the shortage to reach 12 percent by 2010, 20 percent by 2015, and a whopping 29 percent by 2020 (Anonymous, HHS, 2002). The study believes that by 2020, 44 states plus the District of Columbia will have nursing shortages. The nursing shortage is now considered a national security concern, according to the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research and Institute for Health Care Studies at Michigan State University (Nelson, 2002). The situation is such that hospitals are not able to deal with current health care needs, and if a bioterrorism attack were to occur, they would be swamped and unable to cope. Impact on Nursing A report issued by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) showed that nursing shortages were responsible for one in four unexpected deaths and injuries caused by hospital errors (Morrissey, 2002). Nurse-staffing levels were a factor in 24 percent of 1,609 sentinel events since 1996. Patients in hospitals with fewer intensive care nurses had longer hospital stays; higher nurse-staffing levels led to a three percent to 12 percent reduction in some adverse events, such as gastrointestinal bleeding, pneumonia, sh

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