Empowering Nurses at the Bedside and in Business

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They Need Us Now More Than Ever!

It may not feel like it but, from what I hear, nurses are having trouble finding employment.  When the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was passed, hospitals got scared and were concerned whether they would be able to stay in business with the reimbursements provided by the ACA.  So, it appeared the nursing shortage went away, but hospitals were only waiting to see what would happen after the ACA became law.

What really happened is that a lot of people who did not have insurance to get surgery and had been putting things off, now finally have insurance.  This means that the demand for nurses is actually even higher.

There are 3,000,000 nurses in the United States of which 1/3rd are over the age of 50 and will be getting ready to retire in the next few years.  The baby boomer nurses went into nursing when there were less options for women.  It is estimated that there are 500,000 fewer nurses than needed across the county and that membership is expected to increase as more nurses retire.  By 2020, only 4 years from now, the shortage is expected to reach about 1,000,000.  This is job security but also means that now more than ever nurses need to reclaim our profession.

Hospitals are starting to give recruitment bonuses for nurses coming on staff and referral bonuses for those who bring other nurses into the hospital’s employ.

Here we have an opportunity to reclaim our profession.  Hospitals would not be in business without us.  Now is the time that we need to speak our minds, using our GIFTS, so that we can make the changes necessary to improve patient care.

The Institute of Medicine recently presented 10 recommendations for the future of nursing and it is explained in an item written by Kelly Gooch in Becker’s Hospital Review.  The recommendations are:

  1. Build common ground around scope of practice and other issues in policy and practice;
  2. Continue pathways toward increasing the percentage of nurses with baccalaureate degrees;
  3. Create and fund transition of practice residency programs, particularly important for new nurses to get a good start in the profession;
  4. Promote nurses in their pursuit of doctoral degrees;
  5. Promote nurses interpersonal and lifelong learning;
  6. Make diversity in nursing workforce a priority;
  7. Expand efforts and opportunities for interprofessional collaboration and leadership and development for nurses;
  8. Promote the involvement of nurses in the redesign of care delivery and payment systems;
  9. Communicate with the wider and more diverse audience to gain broad support for campaign objectives; and
  10. Improve workforce data collection.

http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/workforce-labor-management/iom-committee-releases-10-recommendations-for-the-future-of-nursing.html

All of these recommendations are well taken because, unfortunately, the number of nurses is limited.  And with that, they need us more and we get to make the necessary changes to improve our profession.

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