What’s Really Behind the Nursing Shortage? 1,500 Nurses Share Their Stories (2023)

FAQs

What is really behind the nursing shortage? ›

Facts About the U.S. Nursing Shortage

More than half of current RNs are over the age of 50. In 2021, U.S. nursing schools turned away more than 91,000 qualified applicants due to a lack of faculty, education space, and resources.

The nursing profession continues to face shortages due to a lack of potential educators, high turnover, and inequitable workforce distribution. The causes related to the nursing shortage are numerous and issues of concern.

Pay Disparities. Nurses are paid less than other professionals, contributing to the nursing shortage. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the median salary for a registered nurse in 2021 was $77,600.

One of the earliest major nursing shortages occurred in the 1930s when other industries in the United States were gripped by historic unemployment during the Great Depression.

California has the worst nursing shortage in the United States. It's predicted that by 2030, California will be in need of over 44,000 nurses. Other states with major hospital staff shortages include New Mexico, Vermont, Rhode Island, West Virginia, and Arizona.

Except for a handful of states, there are sufficient numbers of registered nurses to meet the needs of the country's patients, according to a 2017 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services report on the supply and demand of the nursing workforce from 2014 to 2030. Some states will even have surpluses.

Where nurses work matters. About 36% of nurses who work in hospitals plan to stick with the profession but are looking for a new employer. Only 15% of hospital nurses planned to "continue working as I am," AMN reported. Nurses in other settings such as medical offices were more likely to stay in their position.

The aging population necessitates increasing the level of care patients require. A nursing faculty shortage capping pre-licensure admission capacity. Nursing burnout.

Critical care nurses tend to suffer the highest rates of burnout. Critical care specialties include the emergency department (ED) and intensive care unit (ICU).

The COVID-19 pandemic pushed these shortages to crisis levels, with demand outweighing supply nearly everywhere.

How long will the nursing shortage last? ›

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the country will need more than 203,000 new registered nurses every year through 2026 to fill the gap in care left by a retiring workforce. The average age of a nurse right now is 51.

In 1918, because of the deployment of large numbers of graduate nurses to U.S. military camps at home and abroad, and the failure of the profession to utilize trained African American nurses, the country was experiencing a severe shortage of professional nurses.

According to an American Association of Colleges of Nursing report, “U.S. nursing schools turned away 79,659 qualified applicants from baccalaureate and graduate nursing programs in 2012 due to insufficient number of faculty, clinical sites, classroom space, clinical preceptors, and budget constraints.” Once again, ...

NCLEX examinations are developed and owned by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing, Inc. (NCSBN).

California contains the most professionally active registered nurses in the U.S. with 337,738 RNs, according to a ranking from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

In the United States overall, the average registered nurse salary is $82,750 and the median (50th percentile) is $77,600. California, with RN salaries averaging $124,000, is the highest-paying state for nurses as of May 2021 (according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics).

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Employment Projections 2021-2031, the Registered Nursing (RN) workforce is expected to grow by 6% over the next decade. The RN workforce is expected to grow from 3.1 million in 2021 to 3.3 million in 2031, an increase of 195,400 nurses.

Short-staffed shifts occur when the census – the number of admitted patients – surpasses a unit's maximum capacity per nurse set by standards of quality and safety. Unfortunately, this is a common occurrence in nearly every department of every hospital.

Impact on Health Care

Apart from the financial costs, lack of adequate nurses has an inevitable negative impact on the quality of care received by the patients. There is a direct correlation between patient mortality (i.e., risk of death) and shortage of nurses.

What is the average career length of a nurse? ›

Why is it that the average RN career length is only nine years? Incredible Health.

Higher acuity levels, increased patient volumes, and continued staffing challenges are key contributors — all of which prompt increased turnover, drive decisions to leave the profession, and pose care quality and safety risks.

85% of nurses plan to leave hospital roles 1 year from now: Survey. Becker's Healthcare: Hospital.

Nursing is the nation's largest healthcare profession, with nearly 4.2 million registered nurses (RNs) nationwide. Of all licensed RNs, 84.1% are employed in nursing.

The most stressful nursing jobs include ICU nurse, ER nurse, and NICU nurse. In these roles, nurses work in an intense environment with high stakes. They manage emergency situations and care for critically ill patients. Other stressful nursing jobs include OR nursing, oncology nursing, and psychiatric nursing.

Institutional Nurses

These nurses administer more basic care and typically don't have to work long hours and overnight shifts, so this field of nursing tends to be low-stress. Even with less excitement, these nurses find fulfillment in providing basic and family care to those in need.

2023 nursing healthcare trends will be led by the fallout of a momentous nursing shortage and growing technological changes. 2023 should also bring a renewed focus on nurses' mental health, wearable medical devices, and a rise in virtual medicine.

Is being a nurse worth it 2023? ›

Yes, becoming a nurse is worth it for many students. Nursing is a popular career path because nursing skills are needed in a variety of settings.

Some of the common reasons nurses drop out of nursing school include poor time management skills, overwhelming stress, bad study habits, and difficulty taking the new NCLEX-style questions on exams.

The amount of increase depends on the facility, but a 3-5% raise is standard. In addition to annual pay increases, more hospitals and employers are offering sign-on bonuses to nurses, particularly in areas experiencing acute shortages.

A shortage of RNs is estimated to exist in 2022. RN education enrollments are projected to surpass pre-pandemic levels within the next two years, which will lead to a closing of the shortage by 2029.

According to the report, as many as 13 million more nurses may be needed by 2030; the world's current nursing workforce totals approximately 28 million. The report explains that taking action to sustain and retain workers could minimize the shortage.

The Beginning of the Shortage

This is exactly what happened in the mid-1930s, when several technological, economic, and health care-related events combined to increase the demand for registered nurses and to lay the groundwork for a shortage.

Many women as well as men served as nurses during the Revolutionary War. The Second Continental Congress, heeding George Washington's advice to establish a means of caring for wounded and sick soldiers, authorized the formation of hospitals. Nurses were not always easy to hire.

Many females flock to this profession because of their inherent capacity to care for another human being. Nurses are often seen as caring, compassionate, patient, and understanding. And nursing thrives on a woman's instinct to nurture.

Many nurses are leaving the profession due to the recognition of their own mental health. Nursing is a mentally exhausting career to be in. For many nurses, they are put into difficult situations and often have little time to process or cope.

The national nursing shortage dates back decades, but the COVID-19 pandemic pushed it to crisis levels. One study predicts that, in the next two years, there will be a shortage of up to 450,000 bedside nurses in the U.S. In countries around the world, medical workers are pleading for more support.

Will there still be a nursing shortage in 2025? ›

Researchers estimated that the US will have a 10 to 20 percent nursing gap by 2025 as the number of patients needing care exceeds the number of nurses. The RN supply could potentially see a low of 2.4 million, while the RN demand could be a low of 2.8 million nurses.

None. There is no “easy” state to take the NCLEX. The NCLEX is a national exam administered by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN). Because it's national, the NCLEX will be the same regardless of what state you choose to take it in.

How much does a Nclex Rn make? As of May 18, 2023, the average annual pay for a Nclex Rn in the United States is $109,217 a year. Just in case you need a simple salary calculator, that works out to be approximately $52.51 an hour. This is the equivalent of $2,100/week or $9,101/month.

If you happen not to pass the exam, you can retake it after 45 days. And if you are wondering how often you can take the NCLEX, the NCSBN retake policy allows for a retake eight times a year, ensuring 45 exam-free days between each test.

The nursing shortage is limited primarily to the United States. Downsizing for cost containment by hospitals contributed to the shortage. The use of unlicensed assistive personnel helped to supplement staffing shortages. Increasing the supply of nurses is an easy resolution to the shortage.

Per the data, 4.2% (or an estimated 33,811) of licensed practical nurses/licensed vocational nurses left the workforce in the past two years—an issue compounded by “considerable and somewhat unprecedented disruptions” to prelicensure nursing education programs during the past few years.

The health care industry could be short 2.1 million nurses by 2025, according to an analysis from The Josh Bersin Co. and Eightfold, in today's bite-sized hospital and health industry news from California, Minnesota, and Mississippi.

The shortage causes understaffing and overcrowding in emergency rooms, hospitals, and other medical facilities. To help fill the gaps caused by the shortage, nurses may end up extending themselves too far and working more shifts than they're physically and emotionally capable of.

According to the United States Registered Nurse Workforce Report Card and Shortage Forecast published in the September/October 2019 issue of the American Journal of Medical Quality, a shortage of registered nurses is projected to spread across the country through 2030.

For years, experts in the healthcare field have sounded the alarm on the high demand for nurses nationwide. Based on projections by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the country will need additional 203,200 registered nurses (RNs) each year from now through 2031.

What states produce the most nurses? ›