Give me the numbers regarding "Nursing Shortage"

[kalevra]

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.

[kabooski]

(Article from 2003)

Record-high shortages in the nursing profession are creating a give-away frenzy among hospitals. While the faltering economy has halted sign-on incentives practically everywhere else, hospitals are wooing nurses with offers of vacations, vehicles, massages, concierge services, free tuition for themselves and their children and bonuses of up to $10,000.

I was so excited to get the bonus. What other job but nursing is offering that?" asked Kambe, 23, who was recently hired to work in the cardiac unit at Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital in Inglewood, Calif., a Los Angeles suburb.

Last year, she received a $5,000 sign-on bonus from another hospital. Though other hospitals across the country were dangling trips and trucks to induce nurses to switch jobs, Kambe was lured by Freeman Memorial's offer of a $5,000 bonus, a free 12-week training program and partial tuition to return to school to earn an advanced degree in nursing.

"The economy is bad, going down the toilet. But people aren't going to stop getting sick," she said.

The incentives offer a bright spot for a profession that has been battered in recent years by an exodus stemming from increased patient loads and frequent, forced overtime. One study released last year by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations asserted that the "impending crisis in nurse staffing has the potential to impact the health and security of our society" if steps are not taken to reverse the problem.

Indeed, experts say the shortage has increased nurse response time to patients and caused hospitals to turn away sick people because there are not enough nurses to care for them. A study last year in The Journal of the American Medical Association asserted that patient mortality increases by 7 percent whenever a nurse is forced to care for more than five patients.

The shortage is expected to drastically worsen over the next 20 years, a forecast that prompted legislation in Congress. The Senate recently passed an amendment adding $50 million to the year-old Nurse Reinvestment Act, boosting funding to $213 million. The act finances scholarships and repays student loans for nurses who work in areas with critical shortages.

Currently, 1.89 million nurses are working full time, but an additional 110,000 are needed, according to a 2002 study by the Department of Health and Human Services. By 2020, if current trends continue, nearly 3 million nurses will be needed but only 2 million will be available.

The demand, according to the agency, stems mainly from an increase in the number of elderly patients, who often require more intensive, hands-on care.

The profession is seeing an exodus of experienced nurses, largely because of burnout. From 1996 to 2000, nearly 175,000 nurses left the profession. Some 490,000 licensed nurses no longer work in the profession, up from 438,000 in 1996.

At the same time, the pool is not being replenished quickly enough. The number of new nurses graduating from degree programs dropped about 25 percent from 1995 to 2000. The numbers since have risen slightly, but have not reached previous levels. By 2005, experts predict, more nurses will be leaving the profession than entering it.

"I have heard it described as the perfect storm for a health care crisis," said Carol Cooke, spokeswoman for the American Nurses Association, the nation's largest advocacy organization for nurses. "You have so few nurses who are having to care for so many patients. Nurses are burning out. The turnover rate is 18 percent a year."

The incentives have become a popular and controversial fix.

A recent study by the American Hospital Association showed that 41 percent of hospitals polled in 2001 offered some sort of sign-on bonus or prize to new nurses, compared with 19 percent in 1999.

Ads in recent issues of nursing magazines illustrate the range of incentives: Preferred Healthcare Staffing's "It's your choice" sweepstakes offers a vacation either on safari, to a dude ranch or to India. Cross Country Health Care has an offer to win a Toyota Highlander. There are bonus offers of $5,000 at LifeCare Hospitals of Milwaukee and $6,000 at Baptist Health System in San Antonio of $5,000. Queen of Angels Hospital in Hollywood offers to pay off student loans, a two-year car lease and a bonus of up to $7,000.

"We are trying to be innovative" in recruiting new nurses, said David Langness, spokesman for Tenet Healthcare Corp., which owns Queen of Angels and 39 other hospitals in California.

"We are offering full scholarships and paying living expenses - rent, food, transportation and child care - while they're going to school," he said.

Here is a snippet from a May 2011 article:

Despite a slow economy, the health care industry continues to thrive. This is partially due to growing demand from The aging baby boomer population, who require additional health care services today and into the future. These same boomers are retiring, leaving many areas of the health care field open for new professionals looking to get involved in helping others. Nurses, in particular, are in high demand. Many areas of the country are experiencing major nursing shortages.

As I was searching around I could not help LOL to all the NON stop articles and news clips of "Critical Nursing shortages" going back DECADES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here watch this clip which starts in 1981 and proceeds thru the years

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

info you want is found at top of our news section from us burreau of health professions survey:

2008 national sample survey of registered nurses: 5.3% growth to 3 million rn's

their website has many data links.

[JSlovex2]

as with ANY profession - it depends on where you live. i see people posting here all the time that they can't get jobs, they've applied everywhere, been unemployed for 1+ years, etc. but where i live/work there are new grads being hired every day. no, really, i see new faces practically every day. there are also signs all over town advertising nursing scholarships and the "nurse recruiting department" is very active. i would advise all the nurses who can't find jobs to broaden their horizons and look elsewhere. just bc there isn't a shortage where you live doesn't mean there isn't a need for nurses in other areas. i have no data to share - i'm only telling what's going on where i am.

[Woodenpug, BSN]

The BLS site has some pretty specific data. It's just hard to locate.

http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes291111.htm

ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/ep/ind-occ.matrix/occ_pdf/occ_29-1111.pdf

[madwife2002, BSN, RN]

I agree with several posters it is the experienced nurses we are short of at the moment. I would advice the new grads that trying out for any job to get you though this.

In 92 there was no nursing shortage and no jobs, I was a new grad I did anything to gain more experience and after 3 months I got a full time job!

You can then use the experience to sell yourself-everything and I mean everything you do as a nurse can translate from one job to another it is just a matter of how you use that experience to sell yourself