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Nursing shortage could hinder health care reform

May 6th, 2008 by Staff · 1 Comment

Nursing Economics held a discussion at the National Press Club to discuss the plight of the current nursing shortage and its impact on the availability and effectiveness of health care. The presenters released a report called “Nursing Trends: 2007: Key facts about a changing workforce” complete with graphs showing results of surveys and statistics relevant to the shortage.

Peter Buerhaus, RN, professor of Nursing, and Director said that the shortage of registered nurses began in 1998 and has continued to be the longest lasting shortage on record. He said the number of registered nurses continues to grow, but at a rate that is too slow to meet demand. Citing that less than one percent of American men and Latinos are RNs, Buerhaus said that an increase in RNs from those demographics would help alleviate the shortage.

Beth Ulrich, RN and Senior Vice President, surveyed nurses about presidential candidates’ positions on health care and nursing and found that while Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) received the highest endorsement, 31 percent of participants did not believe any candidate had an adequate reform plan.

Karen Donelan, Senior Scientist in Health Policy, surveyed public perception of the nursing field and found that the public views registered nurses in extremely high favor, second only to teachers. She said responses also showed that the public believes physicians are overpaid and nurses are underpaid, and that this contributes to the shortage of registered nurses.

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Tags: News/Commentary

1 response so far ↓

  • 1 richard // May 6, 2008 at 5:07 pm

    Healthcare may be the fastest growing industry, but it also suffers from a horrendous lack of computerization. While your fast food order is now entirely automated, most hospitals still do their record-keeping on paper. That’s where nursing informatics professionals come in. Nearly 100,000 Americans die each year from preventable medical errors, which digital record-keeping could help to eliminate. Nursing informatics specialists, with training in both nursing and health information technology, bridge the gap between IT and patient care–an essential part of healthcare in the future. The Nurse Company Realizes this, and it has become their goal to intergrate technology to bring the nurse profession up to speed. Shawn D. Mathis, the CEO of The Nurse Company, calls this Nurse Profession 2.0. He has also written a book by the same title, detailing the use of technology to solve the global nursing shortage.
    (http://www.thenursecompany.com)

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