Nursing in Critical Condition

Coffee Brown, University of New Mexico, for Talk Radio News Service

Susan Reinhard, of AARP’s Public Policy Institute helped found the new Champion Nursing Coalition in response a critical and worsening shortage. Thousands of qualified prospective students are being turned away from nursing programs for lack of enrollment capacity, she said. At the same time, she continued, there will be a deficit of 500,000 to a million nurses by 2025.

John Lumpkin, MD, MPH, of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation described a few of the many roles nurses fill, clinical, social, chronic care, and administrative. He called the shortage unprecedented.

There is some good news, however, according to Nancy LeaMond Ex. VP at AARP. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) polls show overwhelming positive ratings and public support for the profession. AHRQ is a federal agency tasked with studies of healthcare improvement.

Citing Institute of Medicine Studies, Nancy Reller, representing Consumers Advancing Patient Safety, said that understaffing of nurses is associated with worse outcomes.

Jerald Newberry, for the National Education Association, said that asthma, obesity, and diabetes are so common in elementary schools that every one of them should have a nurse, but that many do not.

The panel recommends that funds be used to expand nursing programs, which would require about twice as many instructors as now. As it stands, about half of current instructors are expected to retire over the next decade.