Nursing Career Search

Posts Tagged ‘Nursing Shortage’

Registered nurses are trained to care for patients while also assessing medical conditions, and administering treatment and medications. They are employed in hospitals, physician’s offices, long term care facilities and as home health aides. Nurses are becoming an increasingly important part of the healthcare system due to rising costs and growing demand. With the increasing need for nurses in the coming decades, it seems that the United States cannot produce enough nurses to fill the supply.

Healthcare careers are the fastest growing occupation in the country, and nursing tops the charts as the fastest growing occupation within the healthcare field. Why, then, are prospective nursing students being turned away from nursing schools? In the last year that statistics were available, it was estimated that nearly 16,000 students who were qualified to attend a nursing program were turned away. One reason for the shortage of registered nurses is the lack of faculty to instruct and train prospective nursing students. With a vacancy rate over 8 12% and rising, the faculty shortage limits the number of students who can become nurses.

Faculty shortages are not the only reason that prospective students are turned away from nursing schools. Budget constraints have limited school’s abilities to update classrooms and lab equipment. There is a shortage of clinical opportunities for students in many areas. While the state and federal government have taken aggressive steps to recruit nurses in advance of the growing need, with tuition help and improvement of working conditions, their efforts are stymied by the inability of colleges to meet the demands of a growing healthcare crunch.

Lack of faculty is a main factor in nursing shortage

In what is probably the biggest determining factor in how many students are accepted by a school, there are simply not enough nurses teaching at the college level. While some nursing classes, such as core mathematics and chemistry classes do not require a nurse, others do. In fact, a certain percentage of the positions requiring a nurse require that the nurse have a doctorate degree. In contrast, the number of nurses who are seeking their doctorate degree is relatively small. It is estimated that many of the unfilled faculty positions are those that require doctoral education.

Why the shortage of nurses with doctorate degrees? While receiving your doctorate in any field is an accomplishment, it is a simple fact that a nurse can become a nurse anesthetist, a midwife, or a nurse practitioner and make a larger salary and be in heavy demand. Even nursing faculty positions that require only a masters program must compete with the lucrative positions available in the private sector. Nursing specialists are widely used in many communities to provide care for those without access to a physician. These nurses are RNs, with their bachelor and masters degree. As a certified nurse practitioner, the nurse has a great deal of autonomy in her practice and is well compensated.

Because of the specialized nature of the degree, nurses that wish to receive their doctorate must often leave the area where they are and move to a more urban area. At the completion of their training, they often do not return. Many of the nurses that complete a doctorate program, as many as one-fourth, state at graduation that they have no plans to work in academics, and head straight to the clinical setting.

In the past, nursing instructors received a more competitive salary, but as the demand for nurses has increased in the private sector, their salaries have quickly outpaced the salaries of those in education. Now, as more nursing instructors reach retirement age, there is no one to fill their positions. Often nurses who have spent their entire careers in the educational setting enter the clinical setting to raise their income before retirement age.

What can be done?

The shortage of nursing faculty is a well documented and studied problem. With the demand for nurses increasing rapidly, it is important to find a way to increase the number of nurses who can be trained. Some plans are in place to help remedy the nursing shortage. Federal funds are being used for faculty development programs and to collect data on faculty vacancy rates.

Approaching retirement

With many nursing instructors reaching retirement age, the problem of nursing faculty shortages is not expected to go away. The problem creates a vicious cycle, with a growing demand for nurses in the clinical setting raising salaries and benefits. This draws even more nurses out of the academic setting. The shortage of faculty leads to a decrease in the number of students who are accepted into nursing programs. Again, this creates a greater shortage. It is estimated that the nursing shortage, in the clinical setting only, will grow by 6% a year. This shortage can be traced back to the shortage of nursing faculty members

America is facing a nursing shortage that is threatening the quality of health care for patients. A major factor in the problem is a nationwide shortage of faculty in nursing school programs.

Although the number of students applying to undergraduate nursing programs is rising, many are being turned away. With insufficient faculty, the rate of these qualified applicants being denied access into nursing programs is nearly twice as high as those being accepted.

The nursing faculty shortage limits student capacity at a time when the health care system demands more. According to a Vanderbilt School of Nursing study, the nursing shortage is expected to approach more than 800,000 positions by 2020.

Recognizing the nursing shortage crisis and the need for more nurse educators, hospitals and universities are relying on help from unconventional sources including corporations like Johnson & Johnson, which launched a campaign to strengthen the nursing work force by enhancing the image of the profession, recruiting new nurses and faculty, and retaining nurses currently in the profession.

“Too many qualified nursing school applicants are being turned away due to lack of faculty,” said Andrea Higham, director of The Johnson & Johnson Campaign for Nursing’s Future. “The numbers are staggering. The nursing profession needs assistance in recruiting educators, who will train and prepare new nurses, all in hopes of beginning to address the nursing shortage crisis.”

To help raise funds for nursing school grants, scholarships and faculty fellowships, the campaign sponsors Promise of Nursing galas, which have raised more than £7 million. By supporting graduate nursing programs, the Campaign is helping to supply teachers and mentors to prepare the next generation of nurses.

The health and future well-being of the nation depends on nurses, so the faculty shortage must be a priority for health care officials, state and federal government, and citizens, Higham said.  - NU

How would you like a job that no matter where you went, you were in demand? The pay is great. Bonuses are paid when you are hired. You do not have to work in the same place year after year. In fact, you can change the vocation landscape every quarter if you wish. What kind of job am I speaking of? Nursing.

There is such a nursing shortage, they can demand just that. Not just in the United States, but all over the world. It is estimated that there are over 120,000 nursing vacancies in America. And it isn’t getting better. As the US population continues to get older, the nursing shortage is expected to reach 800,000 in the next decade.

Nurses can name their price. Some are making as much as £60-70 per hour. Yes, these are the best of times … and the worse of times for nurses. Good, because they can practically name the terms of their employment. Bad because they are being over worked and our health care is suffering as a result of it. It is only a matter of time that someone’s life is lost as a result of this.

American hospitals are starting to look overseas to satisfy their need for nurses. As this is being written, legislation is being worked to allow these immigrants a path to citizenship as they work in our hospitals.

Pulling nurses from overseas creates problems for those countries that are losing nurses. Good health care is as much a premium there as it is here. This is not the long term solution to the problem.

Our government throws money at everything. Even in nursing education they provide educational grants, loans, etc. The problem is they do not have enough professors to teach new nurses. In fact, there were almost 30,000 qualified nursing students last year that could not get educated.

Is this the government’s responsibility to ante up even more money to educate new nurses? That is not for me to answer, but it seems like some of these agencies and hospitals could do more to encourage and help nurses enter the workplace. After all, these same agencies are willing to pay upwards to £5,000 as a hiring bonus for qualified nurses.

This may not seem to be a problem to you … until you find yourself needing qualified healthcare.

By the year 2020, the United States will face a nursing shortage of 800,000 unfilled registered nursing jobs – and very few of those jobs are in traditional hospital settings. These days, a registered nursing job is as likely to take you into a laboratory or someone’s living room as it is to put you at bedside in the recovery room. If you’re just starting your career in nursing, or looking to make a change, take a look at some of the non-traditional settings that have registered nursing jobs available.

Home Health Registered Nursing Jobs

Home health care is one of the fastest growing sectors of the nursing profession. As hospitals and insurance companies struggle to lower the costs of delivering care, they’ve found that providing nursing care in the home makes more than financial sense. Most patients improve faster when they’re in the familiar setting of their own home. Registered nursing jobs that involve home health care include geriatric nursing, visiting nurse jobs and community health nursing. Some popular home health registered nursing jobs include:

- Newborn visiting nurses make home calls on new mothers who have just been released from the hospital. They offer suggestions and assess physical and medical needs of both mother and child.

- Visiting chronic care nurses help keep patients at home who only require a few hours of skilled nursing care per day or week. They may change feeding tubes or start intravenous medications, assess medical needs or change dressings after surgery.

- Early intervention nurses work with families who have young children with medical needs at home. An EI nurse can make the difference between keeping a child at home or choosing institutionalization.

Occupational Health Registered Nursing Jobs

Occupational health is a growing field, and there are many different positions for registered nurses within it. An occupational health nurse may do initial assessments and physical examinations on site, assess medical needs if someone is injured on the job site or provide medical information and advice to employees of a company.

Public Health Registered Nursing Jobs

Do you dream of making a difference on a wide scale? Public health nurses are often involved in making policies that affect the population of entire cities and states. Among the options for work available in the public sector for nurses are:

- Clinic nurses do hands on patient care in a clinic setting. Registered nurses and nurse practitioners deliver care and advice to families and patients on nutrition, health, preventive care, birth control and medical care.

- Nurses working for the Department of Health may be involved in infectious disease control, monitoring compliance with health guidelines and consulting on medical policies for hospitals and other medical facilities.

School Nursing Jobs

School nurses work on site to help manage the medical needs of students. These days the school nurse may float from campus to campus, or be assigned to one school. Many schools now offer on site clinics for students, and a nurse working in a school clinic may be a student’s primary health contact. They’re responsible for doing emergency care, assessing medical needs and providing family contact points for school students.

Hospice Registered Nursing Jobs

Unlike traditional nursing homes, hospices offer round the clock skilled nursing in a homelike setting. Hospice nursing jobs offer the opportunity for a registered nurse to provide a personal touch to severely ill and terminal patients in a less clinical setting. Hospice nurses work under the supervision of doctors, but often have far more autonomy in making medical decisions.

A nursing career opens so many doors that it’s impossible to fit them all into a brief overview. For more information on registered nursing jobs and career opportunities, visit the Bureau of Labor Statistics web site.

By the year 2014 – just eight years away – there will be 3.6 million new jobs available in the medical profession, and the bulk of those jobs – about 60% of them – will be open to those with nursing degrees of one kind or another. The demand for registered nurses is highest – the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the number of jobs available for registered nurses will rise by 27% by 2014 – but there will also be increased opportunities for certified nursing assistants, licensed practical nurses, nurse practitioners, physician’s assistants and those in medical technical fields like phlebotomy and pulmonology.

And if you thought that the only jobs available for nurses were in hospitals and medical facilities, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has more news for you. Less than 60% of registered nurses work in a hospital. A nursing degree opens doors of opportunity into so many fields that it’s easily one of the most versatile and useful degrees that you can acquire. Not only that – a nursing degree appeals to a wide range of people. According to the BLS, about 20% of those entering the nursing workforce are older workers starting on a second career. Many of them have been attracted by rising salaries triggered by the nursing shortage, but for many of them, a nursing degree is a chance to do something that makes them feel good.

Whether you’ve just started your nursing career, are returning to work after a hiatus, or are switching to a career in nursing as a second career, take a look at some of the opportunities that are open to you with a nursing degree.

Pediatric Home Health Care is one of the growing fields for those with nursing degrees. Every state in the Union now has some sort of Early Intervention program that identifies children under the age of three years with special needs. Pediatric home health care gives you the opportunity to work with children and parents and make a real difference in their lives.

Elder Home Health Care is the other end of the spectrum. The ‘aging of America’ means that more and more people require a little bit of help to remain in their homes. Nursing assistants, registered nurses and licensed nurses can provide that little bit extra that will allow a senior citizen to maintain a higher quality of life and remain at home when all they need is a few hours of medical care a day or week.

Working in a Blood Donor Center is an option that makes you part of the life-saving network. There’s more to blood donor centers than just starting IVs. Nurses who specialize in pharesis can command high salaries, and a nurse working in the blood collection field can be a valuable community organizer as well as a medical practitioner.

A Critical Care Transport nurse requires multiple nursing degrees, but it can be one of the most interesting and fascinating nursing jobs available. A CCT nurse accompanies patients being transported from home or a nursing facility to another nursing facility. The nurse is responsible for maintaining continuity of care for every patient – in the back of an ambulance. It’s a challenging and fun job that commands a salary commensurate with the experience required.

On Site Nursing is a wide open field for medical workers with nursing degrees. You can work at an amusement park or zoo, or in the medical office at a state or national park, or provide medical backup for the emergency workers at a beach or other recreational setting. If you choose to work on site at a camp or other facility, your benefits may include free tuition for your own family.