Faculty Shortage Hurt Nursing Programs

Would you take a job that paid you 50% less than your current one? Nurses around the U.S. are facing this question daily when it comes to choosing between working as a registered nurse or working as a nurse intructor. More often than not, RNs are choosing to stay in the field instead of teaching new nurses, which is making the nationwide nurse shortage an even bigger problem. Fewer teachers in the classroom means more nursing programs have to turn away prospective nursing students.

An article in the Marshall News Messenger quoted associate dean for undergraduate nursing programs at the University of Texas at Tyler, “UT Tyler’s four-year bachelor’s degree program has about 610 students…The school gets about 300-375 applicants and admits about 130 to 140 students.”

The article also included director of the college’s associate degree nursing program, Dayna Davidson, and her thoughts: “About 200 people usually apply for Kilgore College’s 60 positions.”

Still not everyone is hurting. Some private universitities, such as East Texas Baptist University, have empty seats in their nursing programs. Leslie Borcherding, interim dean of the nursing department in teh Frank S. Groner Endowed Memorial School of Professional Studies, thinks the school’s higher tuition combined with the poor economy are jeeping the nursing program’s enrollment down.

Click here to read the entire article: Faculty shortages hurt college nursing programs.

Some Nurses Struggle to Find Jobs

The current shape of the economy has led some nurses to push off retirement and led others to resume their full-time careers for financial reasons. In the short run, it looks as though the nursing shortage has been haulted. Take a deeper look into the situation, and you’ll find that the opposite is actually occurring…What an article in The Washington Post calls it a “Band-Aid” solution.

“After more than a decada when hospitals struggled to maintain sufficient staffing and when nurses could have their pick of jobs, the want ads have virtually disappeared, and only acute-care and emergency-room nurses remain in great demand,” according to The Washington Post.

Click here to read the entire article: Jobs Scarce, Even for Nurses.

Housing Market Affects Nurses Living in Florida

An article from today’s Miami Herald described an interesting phenomenon going on in the world of nursing. In an effort to combat the nursing shortage, nurses living and working in southern Florida are quietly being recruited to the north with promises of cheaper housing and better hiring incentives.

Recruiters from Moses Cone Health System, located in Greensboro, North Carolina, met with a number of nurses this week in a Westin hotel in Fort Lauderdale yesterday.  Next week the recruiters will be at the Marriott Miami Dadeland, and an Orlando location is scheduled for Thursday.

Q: What do you think about this kind of recruiting method?

Click here to read the entire article: NC hospitals quietly tempt South Florida’s nurses.

Unique Staffing Niche – Bilingual Nurses

PRN Funding has written a number of blogs/articles touting Dr. Linda Aiken’s studies on how supplemental staffing agencies can help solve the overall nurse shortage problem.  However, we recently read about a very specific niche in temporary nurse staffing–staffing nurses who are bilingual, especially in Spanish.

In the state of Delaware, where the spanish-speaking population has doubled in the past seven years, bilingual nurses are in high demand.  According to an article on DelawareOnline.com, there is a very real fear that “that with few Spanish-speaking health care workers, those who speak Spanish only, or little English, will be less likely to seek medical treatment.”

Proponents of training and hiring bilingual nurses think that having these specific nurses on staff at key medical facilities will help the immigrants improve their overall health as well as understand the American health care system better.

If you ask the temporary nurse staffing factoring specialists at PRN Funding, staffing bilingual nurses sounds like a unique opportunity that agency owners should think about exploring.

Click here to read the entire article: State needs nurses who speak Spanish.

Temp Nurses are More Qualified

Professor Linda Aiken is back with a new study debunking the myth that temporary nurses are underqualified compared to their full-time hospital counterparts.  She delivered the results of her study last month at the Staffing Industry Analysts Inc.’s Healthcare Staffing Summit, held in San Francisco.

As reported by the Staffing Industry Analyst’s e-newsletter, “according to Aiken, 75% of hospitals participating in a study said they use supplemental nurses. Still doubts over the quality of these nurses persist. Aiken’s study shows that on average supplemental nurses are more qualified and the majority of them work in primary jobs in hospitals. They are also more likely to be specialty certified.

Despite the negative attitude, continued shortage of nurses and physicians bodes well for the healthcare staffing industry. The shortage of registered nurses in the U.S. is estimated to reach 800,000 by 2020. The physician shortage is estimated at 250,000 by 2025. Moreover, Aiken added that 30% of nurses say they are burned out and are dissatisfied with their jobs. They seek employment with staffing firms to control their schedules and to earn better wages and get supplemental income.”

Southern Florida hit hardest in RN shortage

The Florida Center for Nursing published a report last month showing that Southern Florida is among the hardest hit when it comes to the national nurse shortage.  Currently, 16 percent of registered nurse jobs are vacant in the Florida-area, and the shortfall is projected to climb rapidly over the next decade.

Research director at the Florida Center for Nursing said these southern Florida facilities will rely heavily on shifting duties to nurses aides and hiring additional temporary nurses to help alleviate the problem.

Read the article: State nursing shortage needs urgent attention, group says in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com for more information. (NOTE: The original article is no longer available online.)

Slowdown’s Side Effect: More Nurses

Contrary to the rest of the U.S. job market, an economic downturn actually prompts new recruits and seasoned veterans to enter the field of nursing. More nurses entering the workforce full-time means a temporary decrease in the nurse shortage and most likely a minor decrease in the demand for temporary nurses.

But industry experts don’t expect this trend to last for long. As what goes up must surely come down, the familiar trend will reverse once the economy speeds up again. Full-time nurses will cut back on their hours and there will be an increased demand for temporary nurses to fill the vacant hospital positions.

We encourage you to read the Wall Street Journal article, Slowdown’s Side Effect: More Nurses, to learn more about the counter-cyclical nursing profession.

The Nurse Company Announces Launch of MyNurseBook

Is anyone familiar with The Nurse Company?


It’s the first company in the history of the nursing profession dedicated solely  global nurse shortage.  In a recent press release, The Nurse Company described themselves as “the word’s leading nurse shortage management, market research, and advisory company with strategic relationships in 14 countries and territories.”


The Nurse Company offers nurses the use of social media tools to develop collaborative communities and tools to nurses.  Some of their featured resources include:


MyNurseBook, connects nurses around the world interested in networking and sharing their opinions


MyNurseBoard, matching nurses with employers and employer with nurses


MyTrustRex, connecting health professionals and patients

MyNurseStore, online shopping for nurses


MyNurseSchool, online education for nurses (Coming Soon!)


Check it out and let us know what you think about the organization.  We welcome your comments.

Southern Florida Hospitals Offers Big Incentives to Nurses

The nurse shortage is affecting everyone, and industry experts say that it will only get worse–Unless you are a nurse.

 

 

An article from MiamiHerald.com titled: “Where are the nurses?” describes how hospitals in southern Florida are offering BIG incentives in order to recruit and retain nurses during this shortage:

Baptist Health South Florida has been aggressively recruiting nurses from the Philippines, sponsors 10 students by partnering with the International University of Nursing in St. Kitts, and has paid out $11 million in nursing scholarships since 2002.  They also offer housing at below market prices to lure out-of-state nurses to come work at their facilities.

Mercy Hospital started offering nurses who are first-time homebuyers help with their down payments, providing employees between $5000-10,000 in assistance.  In addition, Mercy subsidizes a whopping 80 percent of a Metro or Tri-Rail pass for its employees.  
Memorial Hospital in the South Broward Hospital District offers a concierge services.  Employees can use the services to set up car washes, oil changes and repairs, dry cleaning, gift wrap, travel reservations, purchase gift cards or send someone to their house to wait for a repair man. 

Tenet’sWest Boca Medical Center offers sign-on bonuses which start at $2,000 and retention bonuses from $3,000 to $10,000 as well as bonus incentive programs.

Click here to read more about what southern Florida hospitals are offering their nurses.

Q: Does your nurse staffing agency offer any incentives for the nurse to stay with you rather than to work at the facility directly?

Are Baby Boomer Nurses Burning Out?

AMN Healthcare published the results of their 2008 Survey of Nurses 45 to 60 Years Old Based on 2007 Data, and the research points to baby boomers nurses could be facing career burnout.  Fifty-five percent of nurses actively involved in patient care are 45 years old or older, and 36 percent on 50 and older.Of the 7,500 surveys mailed, 1,831 were returned with responses.  We have included some of the responses below:

52.6% are currently working in a permanent hospital staff position.51.1% have over 26 years of nursing experience. 

45.8 % of the nurses surveyed said they are less satisfied with their job now then they were five years ago. 

82.5% of the nurses surveyed identify the nurse shortage as the main source of the professional frustration. 

41.5% of those surveyed said that nursing is less dynamic, rewarding, and robust than when he/she began their nursing career 

Q: With the general aging baby boomer population looming, it’s easy to see how crucial temporary nurse staffing agencies will become in solving this nurse shortage problem.  How would you solve it?

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