In her article "The Nursing Workforce Shortage: Causes, Consequences, Proposed Solutions," Patricia Keenan (2003) of the John F. Kennedy School of Government discusses the problem of the nursing shortage, identifying the consequences arising from it and proposing solutions for addressing it. The nursing shortage is influenced by a variety of factors, such as a lower number of people entering the profession, a higher demand due to the aging population, opportunities for other career options, inadequate wages, and the heavier workloads and poor working environments that now characterize most nursing jobs (Keenan, 2003, pp. 1-3). Kuehn (2007) notes that although nursing salaries are rising now, there is a bottleneck at U.S. nursing schools that resulted in more than 42,000 qualified applicants being turned away in 2006-2007 and that this bottleneck could contribute to the shortage of nurses growing to more than 1 million by 2020 (p. 1623). Economic recovery contributes to the shortage, because as Buerhaus, Auerbach, and Staiger (2007) point out, when an RN's spouse loses a job or an expected wage increase, the RN may decide to reenter the labor market, but as the RN spouse's income goes up due to getting a better job or a raise, the RN may leave the labor market (p. 61). Laschinger and Finnegan (2005) note that a leaner workforce can reduce the perception of trust and respect in the work environment, which "has detrimental effects on both the organization and employees" (p. 6). These issues demand a strategy and response to the nursing shortage.
Keenan's (2003) article quantifies the problem, identifies how it affects nursing, and offers solutions that can ameliorate the problem. She points out that today's nursing schools have 21,000 fewer students than in 1995, which indicates the severity of the problem (Keenan, 2003, p. 2). She details how the more RN time a patient receives improves the p
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