01.01.70
What is it with nurses? Are there too few of them, with shortages looming? Or are there oceans to go around? Which is it?
A decade ago, the specter of the baby boom generation approaching old age led to predictions of a looming nursing deficit.
The AMA’s journal weighed in at the end of 2008 with a dire prediction from Dr. Peter Buerhaus, a top workforce analyst. “…A stocky and prolonged shortage of nurses is expected to hit the US in the latter half of the next decade,” he said.
Now, a few years later, a add up of recent studies leave us wondering, well, what’s up with nurses?
Health Affairs in December published a think over that surveyed newly licensed registered nurses in 15 states and found that more than half of them repetition within 40 miles of where they attend high school. So if you live in an range that doesn’t have a nurse-training facility, are you out of luck?
Well, not according to another den, this one by Rand, the Santa Monica-based think tank. Rand’s den , also released in December, reassures us that “the number of young people becoming registered nurses has grown firmly since 2002…” Rand’s lead author, David Auerbach, goes on to say that if the lean continues, “it will help to ease some of the concerns about future nursing shortages.” According to the Rand come out with, Auerbach was surprised by the study’s results: “Compared to where nursing reserve was just a few years ago, the change is just incredible.
Source: California Center for Health Reporting (blog)