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Emory Dean Warns of Scarcity of Nurses to Care for Aging Population

The United States is in the midst of a major healthcare challenge: A dearth of registered nurses is mounting as aging baby boomers are requiring more care.

That’s the picture Marla Salmon, dean of the nursing school at Emory University, painted
at "Emory Day" at the National Press Club in Washington. Salmon was among a group of health policy experts from the Atlanta university to gather on April 25, 2007 to explore potential solutions to crises in the nation’s healthcare system.

Salmon admonished that an increasing lack of registered nurses—-almost a million by 2020—-is set to jeopardize the healthcare of aging Americans. The deficient healthcare system must accommodate heightened demands as baby boomers march toward retirement age.

The nursing population, according to Salmon, is "an equation that is failing," with mainly "white, middle-class, middle-aged women" who don't represent demographic trends. The average age of a registered nurse has increased from 40 to 47 since 1980, she said. Less than 10 percent of nurses are under 30.

The nursing shortage is a multifaceted problem. And it’s one that represents the convergence of a variety of healthcare ills, according to Dr. Arthur Kellermann, chairman of the department of emergency medicine at Emory. Kellermann said the nursing deficit is, in part, the result of overcrowded emergency rooms and escalating levels of uninsured patients.

The paucity of nurses is further exacerbated by the extra requirements imposed upon them, Salmon maintains. The average nurse spends up to 50 percent of his or her time on administrative duties, she said. "Think of that as a shortage in itself," Salmon said in a Cox Washington Bureau April 26, 2007 article published on ajc.com.

Ironically, a shortage of teachers is another part of the problem. There simply aren’t enough teachers to educate future nurses. According to the National League for Nursing, U.S. nursing schools rejected about 150,000 qualified applicants in 2005—-an 18-percent increase from the previous year—-because they did not have enough teachers.

“So at the same time that we’re looking at increased enrollments, the question arises of who will teach nurses in the future,” Salmon said in the ajc.com article. At Emory, about 75 percent of the nursing faculty is over 50.

To make matters worse, nurses are exiting the work force in growing numbers, according to Salmon. Many are going into the insurance sector, and a significant number are headed for retirement.

Statistics quantifying the problem are bleak. According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN):
  • Based on finding from the Nursing Management Aging Workforce Survey released in July 2006 by the Bernard Hodes Group, 55 percent of surveyed nurses reported their intention to retire between 2011 and 2020. The majority of those surveyed were nurse managers.
  • In April 2006, officials with the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) released projections that all 50 states will experience a shortage of nurses to varying degrees by the year 2015.
  • According to a report released by the American Hospital Association in April 2006, U.S. hospitals need approximately 118,000 RNs to fill vacant positions nationwide. This translates into a national RN vacancy rate of 8.5 percent. The report, titled The State of America's Hospitals - Taking the Pulse, also found that 49 percent of hospital CEOs had more difficulty recruiting RNs in 2005 than in 2004.

The healthcare industry is going to serious lengths to meet the nursing shortage. Many hospitals and healthcare systems have been recruiting nurses from outside the United States. In fact, Congress is considering a special visa program for foreign-born nurses in an immigration bill this year. The United States is already the world’s biggest importer of nurses, hiring most of its overseas nurses from the Philippines.

The magnitude of the problem demands a solution. In 2000, the HRSA (an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services) forecasted a shortage of about 800,000 nurses by 2020 unless serious steps were undertaken.

And the Southern Regional Education Board predicted in a report that Georgia would have more than 3,000 openings for registered nurses every year through 2014. If the scarcity in Georgia were solved, the income of the new nurses would add in excess of $400 million to the state's economy, according to the report.

The report stated: "No other professional group is in higher demand than nursing, and no other single group offers the economic benefits of the nursing profession."

This article was reproduced for educational purposes from the April 26, 2007 ajc.com article entitled “Emory Dean Warns of Nursing Shortage as Boomers Age, More Care Needed” by Gerry Smith.