Is the nursing shortage finally here?
In her June issue editorial, AJN editor-in-chief Shawn Kennedy notes that in her recent visit to the annual National Student Nurses’ Association (NSNA) conference, many of the senior students she spoke with already had jobs lined up.
She surveys some recent indicators pointing to the possible arrival at last of a long-predicted nursing shortage, and some of the possible implications this is having or may have in the coming years for patient care and the health of organizations. For example:
“A survey of 233 chief nursing officers conducted last July conducted last July by national staffing company AMN Healthcare found that 72% said their shortages were moderate to severe, and most expected shortages to worsen over the next five years. They also acknowledged that the shortage was having a negative effect on patient care, patient satisfaction, and staff morale.”
Bonuses for new hires.
She notes that, with hospitals in some regions paying signing bonuses to new nurses, the question of staff retention and development remains the elephant in the room.
The class of 2018, it seems, is entering a job seeker’s market. . . . Organizations that can invest in new nurses with programs that provide support and training will have a leg up in recruitment. But retaining these new recruits needs to be a group effort involving all nurses in an organization. We know from studies such as the RN Work Project that the first year of a nurse’s first job is a critical one, with almost 18% of new nurses leaving their first employer after one year. We need to . . . remember that once we were new and inexperienced too.”
Why don’t new nurses stay very long in their first jobs?
In a recent blog post, “Experienced Bedside Nurses: An Endangered Species?,” Kennedy detailed a few of the factors in play. How health care organizations respond to these issues, either with long-term vision and innovation or quick fixes, will have implications for both the nursing profession and the quality of the health care we can all eventually hope to receive.
Let us know your insights and experience around these issues. Where are we headed?
I have been a nurse for 38 years and have seen a wonderful field trashed by penny pinching and politics. There are many causes for the shortages.
1. Fewer nurses working harder = dollars saved. Plus the12 hr shifts (that seem more like 24) are not condi. Nurses are burning out quicker these days. As far as the aging nurses, we certainly can’t pull such long hours.
2. “BSN” and “experience only need apply”. Lpns and Adns are being pushed out of the field or forced to go to school and create a major debt by the implementation of these standards (and I do believe the colleges are reaping the benefits of this push for enrollment). Experience? Everyone must start somewhere and learn the job. How can a nurse get experience unless given the opportunity?
3. Nursing has been unrealistically pitched. It has been greatly glamorized, while the sacrifices it requires has been greatly minimized. Although for a worthy cause, but there is still a price to pay.
4. Plain and simply stated: As the push for Bsn is on…which means higher pay in many instances…the focus has changed to “how much money can I make”, and the highest bidder wins. Dedication has suffered in light of this.
5. As far as interpersonal relationhips….the previous writer said it all. It is an oxymoron that those who have dedicated themselves to looking out for patients/clients, should show such antagonistic behaviors those that they work every user with, their side by side conrads on the battlefield.
So yes, until a few things in the nurses arena changes, the shortage will continue. How disappointing.
I want to comment on the question posed “Why don’t new nurses stay very long in their first jobs?”. I have been an RN since 2007. Although I studied eagerly, with my heart’s best desire, when I was hired to my first job, I had a huge reality check. The institution placed me on one of the toughest floors- the one that no one else wanted to work on. Although I did have several co-workers that were very supportive, I also learned just how fast nurses can eat their young, simply because of their own personal insecurities. I wanted to go back to school to study something else entirely, until my student loan bill came. I think that a large majority of new nurses experience the same. I feel this could be reduced if the organizations provide courses that encourage a sense of community and fostering to new nurses instead of having such a competitive work environment. Thankfully, my current organization is completely different than my first.
To address the issue of staffing, retention, the predicted nursing shortage, and the loss of experienced bedside nurses, I haven’t felt that there is any nursing shortage at all, at least in my area. Due to recent changes in healthcare and insurances, my current organization has since been restructured, in which a large majority of the staff- both clinical and non-clinical, were encouraged to retire or work elsewhere. Both patient satisfaction and staff morale were affected. In addition to the created staffing shortages, there seems to be an endless stream of new nurses entering the organization, all of which must be trained from the very beginning. There are so many new nurses entering, as an experienced nurse, I feel that if I applied somewhere else, I would be looked at as “old” or as “having bad habits” whereas the new nurses are basically “clean-slates”. We have several nurses in my department that have been bedside nurses for over 35 years. When these “old, bad-habit” nurses retire this year, there will be a huge deficit of knowledge that only experience can teach. Although they have earned their rite of passage into retirement, it will be a huge loss for the department and the organization.