Give me the numbers regarding "Nursing Shortage"

[kalevra, BSN, RN]

Given that many people including our own lawmakers believe there is a nursing shortage, I would like anyone and I mean anyone to send me hard data or primary research articles on how many RN's we have and how many positions are open. I know many nurses blame management and say it is about money, I don't want to hear that. All I want is hard data, cause then someone can be held responsible for propagating this idea. You gotta love how studies have to be documented by the people conducting the research in order to get credit for it. I am really hoping the data isn't from 2003 cause I read a few of those and they do not really pertain to our economy now. Please I would like them to be recent say 2007 on up. This way it is just right around when the economy tanked and all the nurses with experience came out of retirement to recover losses, or spouses lost jobs, and so on. Thank you for your cooperation.

[Nccity2002, MSN, RN]

Despite everything, I do believe there is a nursing shortage. All over the country, new nurses are reporting difficulty finding jobs, as hospitals seek out experienced nurses to cover heavy patient load.This creates a patient care Catch-22. If hospitals won’t hire new graduates, they can’t get experience. And if they can’t get experience, there will be no one left to hire when the experienced nurses leave their positions. Since the average age of a registered nurse is 47, a lot of nurses will be retiring in a few years, no matter how bad the economy is.To make matters worse, hospitals, to save money, are not expeditiously filling positions left vacant when a registered nurse quits or retires.

Check the links below:

http://www.nursezone.com/printArticle.aspx?articleID=36300

http://www.aacn.nche.edu/media/factsheets/nursingshortage.htm

[Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN]

Despite everything, I do believe there is a nursing shortage. All over the country, new nurses are reporting difficulty finding jobs, as hospitals seek out experienced nurses to cover heavy patient load.This creates a patient care Catch-22. If hospitals won't hire new graduates, they can't get experience. And if they can't get experience, there will be no one left to hire when the experienced nurses leave their positions. Since the average age of a registered nurse is 47, a lot of nurses will be retiring in a few years, no matter how bad the economy is.To make matters worse, hospitals, to save money, are not expeditiously filling positions left vacant when a registered nurse quits or retires.

Check the links below:

http://www.nursezone.com/printArticle.aspx?articleID=36300

http://www.aacn.nche.edu/media/factsheets/nursingshortage.htm

Don't hegde your bets..........

A lot of us nurses lost our butts in 401K's crashed and then because we made more money, we got laid off and have used our 401K's to survive.......many nurses that were going to retire can't because their husbands got laid off and again took that 401K financial loss. As most hospitals don't offer any retirement any more other than 401K like funds.....we will be stuck working for quite some time yet.

Ultimately will the shortage return...I believe it will but not as quickly as some people think.....

[cindyloowho]

The nursing shortages stated by studies are calculated by taking the number of nurses per capita by population. I don't have numbers, but the department of health and human resources still calculates a shortage because the ratio of nurses per capita is still below the desired ratio. The difficulties that people are having finding jobs is because facilities have had their census' lowered, they got stingy with their hiring budgets, more seasoned nurses retained their jobs, and fewer people chose elective healthcare. The economy has made it hard for people to find jobs, but there are still not enough nurses per capita, according to the government's ideal ratio.

[classicdame, MSN, EdD]

the shortage is in EXPERIENCED nurses, not new grads, at least in our area. We do not want too many "new" nurses on the floor at the same time. I know researchers are projecting for the future

[Altra, BSN, RN]

Lots of aggregate data at http://www.bls.gov/oes/

"Projected nursing shortage" media coverage often originates from national health statistics on the percentage of the population, particularly the elderly population, who require "nursing" care ... and that population of course will increase exponentially in the next decade or two.

Also consider that the U.S. is a huge country, with huge regional variations in economic climate, health care service availability, employment, wages, etc. It is difficult, at best, to generalize about any occupation or industry which is dispersed throughout the country.

And, ultimately, for an individual, everything is ultimately local. In a single locale there may be a dearth of nursing graduates, or a surplus. Health care facilities may have a large local presence or they may be scarce.

So "the numbers" ... are relative. As are most things in life.

[itsmejuli]

Several months ago I posted a link to the FL BON's research paper on the recession's economic impact on nursing employment. Perhaps if you search by my username you can find that link. Or try searching the FL BON website.

I left the States and returned to Canada for economic reasons. I'm way behind in savings for retirement and at least here I have a better chance of retiring someday because I'll retire with healthcare.

[classicdame, MSN, EdD]

Once people my age retire there will be loads of openings. But I am healthy and do not want to retire till working is more trouble that what it is worth. The economy is not all that great either. So even though many people MAY retire, they may not. Hard for bean counters to predict the time when a genuine shortage will occur.

[kalevra, BSN, RN]

Despite everything, I do believe there is a nursing shortage. All over the country, new nurses are reporting difficulty finding jobs, as hospitals seek out experienced nurses to cover heavy patient load.This creates a patient care Catch-22. If hospitals won't hire new graduates, they can't get experience. And if they can't get experience, there will be no one left to hire when the experienced nurses leave their positions. Since the average age of a registered nurse is 47, a lot of nurses will be retiring in a few years, no matter how bad the economy is.To make matters worse, hospitals, to save money, are not expeditiously filling positions left vacant when a registered nurse quits or retires.

Check the links below:

http://www.nursezone.com/printArticle.aspx?articleID=36300

http://www.aacn.nche.edu/media/factsheets/nursingshortage.htm

The nursezone article states that we are currently in a nursing shortage and will grow even worse as the older baby boomer generation ages. The article also cites that there is an 8.1% vacancy rate in nursing positions according to the University of Maryland School of Nursing. The data they use to justify their position on the shortage is the Bureau of Labor and Statistics 2010-2011. The problem I have here if where do they get the data they use to project future job openings. I wen to th eBLS site and read the job outlook for RNs and all it states is that we will have a greater need of RNs. Ok thats fine but the data used to get to the conclusion isn't on there.

The second web site aacn.com also states that the healthcare economy will grow. They also provided a link, which I followed to see the raw data. It took me to the BLS website http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

The site states that "Health care employment continued to expand in May (+17,000). Employment in the industry

had risen by an average of 24,000 per month over the prior 12 months". Keep in mind it says HEALTHCARE EMPLOYMENT, not RN or even nurse. It means anyone employed in healthcare, you have PA, Rad-Tech, Phleb-Tech, CLS, and a bunch of other professionals in healthcare but not Nurses. Furthermore when I looked at the individual links at the bottom to look for

Nurses, they aren't even in there. Healthcare was the closest field, and it wasn't even by it self. The category states Health care and social assistance which is a subcategory of Education and health services.

Heres the page http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.b.htm

The entire health profession is lumped together with other professions thereby making the category look better. The numbers shown are for multiple fields and not just healthcare. I mean you have education and social work combined with healthcare. Of course the people looking at the raw data will come to the conclusion of a job growth, its 3 different professions something has to grow.

I may sound angry which I am, but not at you. I am glad to have seen these numbers. The way the raw data was compiled would doesn't make sense. The other professions are on their own or are together with another occupation that makes sense. Such as motor-vehicles and parts, but healthcare with social services and education. We are in there with school teachers, and shrinks.

I really appreciate the links Nccity2002.

[kalevra, BSN, RN]

Several months ago I posted a link to the FL BON's research paper on the recession's economic impact on nursing employment. Perhaps if you search by my username you can find that link. Or try searching the FL BON website.

I left the States and returned to Canada for economic reasons. I'm way behind in savings for retirement and at least here I have a better chance of retiring someday because I'll retire with healthcare.

I went to the site and pasted your name into the search bar and got no results back. Do you have a copy of it somewhere or a link?

[kalevra, BSN, RN]

Lots of aggregate data at http://www.bls.gov/oes/

"Projected nursing shortage" media coverage often originates from national health statistics on the percentage of the population, particularly the elderly population, who require "nursing" care ... and that population of course will increase exponentially in the next decade or two.

Also consider that the U.S. is a huge country, with huge regional variations in economic climate, health care service availability, employment, wages, etc. It is difficult, at best, to generalize about any occupation or industry which is dispersed throughout the country.

And, ultimately, for an individual, everything is ultimately local. In a single locale there may be a dearth of nursing graduates, or a surplus. Health care facilities may have a large local presence or they may be scarce.

So "the numbers" ... are relative. As are most things in life.

I fully understand that as the baby boomer age they will require more"nursing" care. Since there are so many of them it is understandable that we will need more "nurses". There will be areas of the U.S that have a greater demand for nurses versus others, I fully agree with that. What I want to know are the numbers showing how many nurses such as CNA, LVN/LPN, RN, and NP are being produced by state to meet their need for professionals. Giving people the projected need for nurses based on an aging population is only half the equation. We must also look at what is happening now to fill the need later, since it takes 2-4 years to build one RN. We should ask about what student is the student population that are currently in a nursing program.

M maybe based on some states current production of Nurses we wont have such an expected deficit 4 years down the line. Some states are impacted for RN programs. This includes the state universities and private school.

Thanks for the incite.

[Turd Ferguson]

There's not a nursing shortage, there's a $$$$ $hortage.