What can be done to ease the nursing shortage?
Dean, Goldfarb School of Nursing at Barnes-Jewish College
WE NEED TEACHERS TO HELP TEACH THE NEXT GENERATION OF HIGHLY SKILLED NURSES.
Nursing shortages historically have been cyclical, and the demand for registered nurses today is in part due to the increasingly sicker hospitalized patient population.
Consider an aging work force — the average (registered nurse) in Missouri is in his or her late 40s and will be retiring over the next 15 years — combined with an explosion of aging baby boomers that will begin needing higher levels of care, and the result is the current nursing shortage.
But more alarming is the lack of nursing faculty to teach the next generation. Nursing colleges across the nation face long recruiting periods to fill open positions, limiting growth of programs and educational access for students.
At the Goldfarb School of Nursing at Barnes-Jewish College, we are taking a twofold approach by increasing faculty and the number of students in our undergraduate programs.
While many excellent nursing instructors are master’s prepared, we need to create more doctorally-prepared faculty to educate today’s highly skilled nurses. To address that concern, the Goldfarb School of Nursing is preparing to add a doctoral program to our bachelor’s and masters’ programs over the next several years.
Nurses have unlimited growth potential and can find careers in public and community health, hospitals, industry, and employment is almost guaranteed. But to create enough nurses, we need to encourage our brightest students to pursue higher levels of education so they can help create the next generation of professionals.
Teaching the teachers of the future has to be a priority for all nursing colleges.
President, Missouri Nurses Association
STEPS MUST BE TAKEN TO OFFER GOOD PLACES TO WORK FOR STATE’S REGISTERED NURSES.
There is not a shortage of registered nurses in Missouri but a shortage of good places to work. The market-driven health system in America uses the characteristics of cost-cutting, reduced use of services and maximization of revenues and return on investment.
Nursing salaries are the first item to be cut when revenue declines. Reducing the number of (registered nurses) at the bedside or in an outpatient setting increases the workload for the RNs who are left.
Asking RNs to do more with less only results in increased risk for patients and the health care system and increased stress for the RN work force.
Research has shown that when there are fewer nurses to care for more patients, patient care suffers.
Forcing RNs to work mandatory overtime leads to fatigued nurses whose professional judgment is affected paydayloans.
Staff RNs who perform the daily work need to be included in the planning of staffing of hospitals and outpatients centers.
Failure to listen to the concerns and requests of RNs only leads to a never-ending cycle of turnover.
RNs are looking for healthy places to work where their personal and safety needs are addressed by management. Health care organizations that include the voice of nursing when planning their systems will attract nurses.
I encourage policymakers to read "Crossing the Quality Chasm," a 2001 Institute of Medicine report that lays out how the health care system must be radically transformed if we expect quality nursing care in the future.
Assistant professor of nursing, Maryville University
EDUCATION AND FINANCIAL INCENTIVES COULD HELP AVERT A SHORTAGE OF NURSES.
Americans feel the bite of high gasoline costs. But there’s a shortage of another precious resource that not all Americans have felt yet — but will soon unless this nation’s health care community and the government begin to act. America is facing a critical shortage of nurses.
Are there any solutions out there?
In the short-run, covering two to five years, Maryville’s nursing faculty suggests the following:
•Import (qualified) foreign nurses.
•Encourage juniors and seniors in high school to consider nursing as a profession.
•Work with the government to award cash bonuses to students who are accepted by a nursing school and provide another bonus upon graduation, and provide financial support.
In the longer-term of five years and beyond, Maryville sees teaching infrastructure being a top priority:
•Eliminate the dependence on imported nursing help.
•Open additional schools of nursing. This will take governmental assistance. Maybe it’s time to revive the land-grant college system that led to the formation of this country’s state universities and use it to endow these new nursing schools.
•Provide financial incentives for nurses to seek degrees beyond that of RN so there will be a sufficient number of instructors to staff these schools.
•This nation must develop a new national attitude toward nursing that emphasizes more respect for nurses, gives nurses more autonomy in decision-making, and views nurses as professionals.
Maryville’s nursing faculty offers some straight thinking about what we must do. It’s time for those in our legislatures to take these recommendations seriously and turn them into positive action.
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