What Healthcare Students Should Know About the Nursing Shortage

Anyone who’s ever endured -- or watched a loved one endure -- a hospital stay, knows that while doctors may command higher salaries and hierarchical respect, the vital work done by nurses is overlooked and yet priceless. Which is one of the reasons the growing shortage of nurses is troubling. Here’s a closer look at the phenomenon, why it’s happening, and what can be done about it.

A Worldwide Problem

The nursing shortage in the U.S. is well-documented. As the massive baby boomer generation ages into their “golden years” corresponding with a rise in chronic conditions, the need for health care is skyrocketing. Factor in a lack of capacity at nursing schools, a dearth of nursing school school factory, and high nurse retirement and turnover rates across the country, and the numbers are grim: While Registered Nursing (RN) is listed as one of the top occupations for growth according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Employment Projections 2014-2024, there simply aren’t enough nurses to keep up, according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN). The gap is projected to widen and spread between now and the year 2030.

But the US is hardly alone. Earlier this summer, the Royal College of Nursing issued a “final warning” to the government about dire staffing shortages. Meanwhile, Japan is also facing an acute dearth of nursing care workers.

And it doesn’t end there. France, South Africa, and Norway are all among the countries struggling with nursing shortages.

Understanding the Phenomenon

All of which begs the question: Why is this invaluable career -- nurses are perennially rated as the most honest and ethical professionals in Gallup polls, after all -- unable to keep up with demand? Depending on the country, a number of factors are at work, including the aging population, the aging nursing workforce, more career options for women, short-staffing and resulting poor work conditions, inadequate access to research and education, the perception that nursing is predominantly female work, and the increasingly complex landscape of health care and care technology.

The Truth About Nursing website, meanwhile, suggests an underlying issue: “In the most basic sense, the current global nursing shortage is simply a widespread and dangerous lack of skilled nurses who are needed to care for individual patients and the population as a whole. The work of the world's estimated 12 million nurses is not well understood, even by educated members of society. But nursing is a distinct scientific field and autonomous profession whose skilled practitioners save lives and improve patient outcomes every day in a wide variety of settings. In theTruth's view, the vast gap between what skilled nurses really do and what the public thinks they do is a fundamental factor underlying most of the more immediate apparent causes of the shortage.”

Reversing the Trend

The cause of the global nursing shortage is multi-factored. It follows that solving it is equally complex. According to an article published in the Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, “For sustained change and assurance of an adequate supply of nurses, solutions must be developed in several areas: education, healthcare delivery systems, policy and regulations, and image. This shortage is not solely nursing's issue and requires a collaborative effort among nursing leaders in practice and education, health care executives, government, and the media.”

In other words, while there’s no single and clear-cut way to correct course, a concerted effort -- including everything from improving work-life balance to outside-the-box incentivizing aimed at increasing job satisfaction -- may yield positive outcomes.

A longer-term solution may be found in an unlikely place: robots. Already in use in some hospitals in Japan, where robotic medical carts retrieve records and deliver medications, robotic nursing may be an effective alternative to the human workforce. Industry experts also suggest that “nursebots” can be of particular use for the elderly, assisting with everything from daily care reminders to social engagement.

That said, nursebot capabilities can only go so far. Predicts global information services company Wolters Kluwer’s Nursing Education Blog, “You can expect to see more mechanized caretakers in hospitals and nursing homes. It’s important to note, however, that robotic nurses don’t decide courses of treatment or make diagnoses. The integration of robots will be more of a collaboration, not replacement for nurses and doctors.”

Where Do Students Fit Into the Mix

If you’re currently studying nursing or thinking of studying nursing, the future looks bright. Nursing programs are evolving to concept-based learning models designed to help future nurses acquire the skills they need to survive and thrive in the profession.

Continues the Nursing Education Blog, “A concept-based curriculum model reduces content repetition and helps students acquire and apply the critical thinking and reasoning skills so essential for practice settings today. Major academic institutions – including the Institute of Medicine, National League for Nursing, American Association of Colleges of Nursing, and the Carnegie Foundation – have all called for profound changes in how nursing students are educated in order to address the realities of 21st-century health care.”

Nursing programs are also shifting to offer nurses more opportunities for career growth, mobility and autonomy while simultaneously changing public perceptions about the profession -- all toward the advancement of the profession.

But even if your interests don’t lie in clinical nursing, you can still make a difference in the field -- in a breadth and depth of roles ranging from teacher to technologist.

According to the Journal of Clinical Nursing, “Nurses are the main professional component of the ‘front line’ staff in most health systems, and their contribution is recognized as essential to meeting development goals and delivering safe and effective care.” Addressing the nursing shortage through creative solutions is necessary to ensuring health care systems which continue to meet the needs of all countries and their inhabitants.

Find out where you can study nursing.