If you were enrolling in a nurse training program in the mid to late 1990’s, you probably heard that you were really in for it, training for a difficult jobs- you also probably heard that with all these nurse training schools popping up, it was going to be very hard to have a career nursing, as there just weren’t enough jobs to go around.
Well, flash forward to the end of the first decade of the new century. Prognosticators who study the healthcare industry have been predicting for a while that the situation with regards to the availability of jobs for nurses was going to change- and boy, has it! Health care providers such as hospitals and nursing homes are waking up to the realization that as people leave nursing positions, it’s becoming very hard to fill those positions with new, qualified nurses. This has led to extreme competition for qualified nurses, and not only on a local (national) but worldwide scale.
What the nursing shortage should amount to, in the long run, is a much more improved working environment for nurses in the future who choose career nursing as a profession. In the short term, however, this shortage is proving to be difficult to overcome and may actually contribute to the frustrations many nurses feel which cause them not only to leave their jobs but also to discourage others from taking up the profession.
In order to ensure that the current crisis in nursing does not continue much further into the future, the two areas of retention and recruitment need to be addressed. This article will take a look at some of the topics that come up among nurses when it comes to addressing these issues.
With up to 40% of the nursing workforce expected to retire over the next 10 years, it’s very important to keep the younger members of the profession happy, so that the current crisis in the field can be halted.
A common complaint among nurses is that they don’t get the respect they are entitled to, as most people (especially those within the medical community) see nursing as less of a “profession” and more of a “job”. This is particularly bad when it comes to the case of physicians, as they have been guilty in the past of giving nurses the impression that they are there simply to carry out the doctor’s orders. Only now that the profession is hemorrhaging people does the system realize how integral nursing is to the healthcare system, and that nurses should be awarded the same respect as doctors, respiratory techs or other medical professionals. The general public is also becoming more aware of this reality.
The nursing shortage has meant that everyone has realized just how rigorous the training and testing is that allows a prospective nurse to become a registered nurse, and that the number of years required to be trained for this position is equivalent to the number it takes to earn a Bachelor of Arts or any other undergraduate degree.
Too often, nurses report that the conditions in their workplace are poor. This doesn’t apply to things necessary to doing a job (i.e. sick patient), but instead applies to things that are directly influenced by management policy such as nurse-to-patient ratio, hours of work, use (or lack of use) of support staff, and the condition of equipment.
Most nurses in the US work a combination of both day and night shifts. Of course, it’s impossible to run a medical facility without nurses, yet the inconvenience of working a night shift is not currently compensated any differently. One way to increase the attractiveness of the position would be to do as they do in other professions and pay more for workers that take night shifts, and some facilities are already looking at revising work schedules so that night shifts are not as long as day shifts are, with some adding in a “swing” shift.
Government spending increases on healthcare should help resolve some concerns including the concerns nurses have about support staff and equipment. Nursing is a job that includes quite a lot of lifting, so medical care facilities will need to invest in modern equipment to assist with this burden so that nurses can have longer careers. Many nurses also report that they are held responsible for performing duties that would traditionally fall to a receptionist or an orderly, and in order for them to stay focused on their nursing duties, care facilities will have to budget better so that nurses aren’t being needlessly overburdened.
The biggest short-term problem facing the industry is the nurse-to-patient ratio. Most facilities are unable to fill vacant positions, and so the ratio remains at a level that many nurses are uncomfortable with. However, efforts to address the issue properly still provide hope.
Recruiting of nurses is the second vital focus for the future of nursing. This milieu will see increasing attempts to train nurses properly, and increased efforts by medical providers to attract good nurses. Those that can’t offer sufficient training and enticements will soon find themselves without enough nurses to run their facilities!
Unfortunately, universities and colleges are not graduating enough nurses quickly enough, to replace those that are leaving the profession. Further complicating things is the fact that many of them are not going to work in traditional nursing workplaces such as hospitals but are instead choosing relatively lower-stress jobs with higher levels of pay such as nursing homes or incarceration facilities.
In order to improve the patient to nurse ratio that is such a common complaint among nurses, it is vital to increase the number of students coming out of nursing schools across the country. Universities and colleges need to have the funding available to create these spaces. In addition, facilities and governments will have to offer programs such as student loan forgiveness programs in order to attract potential students to the profession.
The last decade has seen a massive growth in secondary industries targeted towards nurses. These industries include nursing agencies and travel nursing programs which hire their own nurses and then contract them out to facilities in need. These nurses are generally higher paid than their counterparts in the facilities they are contracted out to. In addition, they get to change their place of work frequently, often with all travel expenses paid. Facilities are going to need to take a look at this practice and determine if they are willing to offer the kind of wages and benefits that these nurses are receiving if they ever hope to have a stable work force.
As far as the nursing profession goes, the long term future is bright. The current shortage allows a graduating nurse to virtually write his or her own ticket. In addition, the shortage is expected to grow worse, which has pushed the concerns of nurses into the public spotlight. In order to alleviate the shortage, governments and facilities will have no choice but to meet the concerns of nurses in order to keep them at their jobs.
Alternatively, the future of the nursing profession may lie within nursing agencies. Unless facilities and governments realize that the concerns of nurses need to be met at the ground level, new and established nurses alike will continue to gravitate towards the pay and flexibility that these agencies offer.
Armed with these facts, you should be able to make an informed decision about whether a career nursing is right for you. Happy job hunting!
