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Multiple Factors Create Nurse Recruitment and Retention Problems
Registered nurses are responsible for a large portion of the health care provided in this country. RNs make up the largest group of health care providers, and are 77 percent of the nurse workforce.1 Historically, RNs have worked predominantly in hospitals; in 2000, 59.1 percent of RNs worked in hospitals. A smaller number of RNs work in other settings, such as ambulatory care, home health care, and nursing homes. Their responsibilities may include providing direct patient care in a hospital or home health care setting, managing and directing complex nursing care in an intensive care unit, or supervising the provision of long-term care in a nursing home. In 1999 licensed practical nurses (LPN) composed 23 percent of the nurse workforce. LPNs provide patient care under the direction of physicians and registered nurses, with 32 percent working in hospitals, 28 percent working in nursing homes, and the rest working for doctors’ offices, home health agencies, residential care facilities, schools, temporary help agencies, and government agencies.
Individuals usually select one of three ways to become an RN—through a 2-year associate degree, 3-year diploma, or 4-year baccalaureate degree program. As of 2000, 40.3 percent of nurses had received their training through an associate program, while 29.6 percent and 29.3 percent had received their training in a diploma or baccalaureate degree program, respectively. LPN programs are 12 to 18 months in length and generally focus on basic nursing skills such as monitoring patient or resident condition and administering treatments and medications. Once they have completed their education, RNs and LPNs must meet the licensing requirements of their state to be allowed to practice.
The U.S. health care system has changed significantly over the past two decades, affecting the environment in which nurses provide patient care. Advances in technology and greater emphasis on cost effectiveness have led to changes in the structure, organization, and delivery of health care services. While hospitals traditionally were the primary providers of acute care, advances in technology, along with cost controls, shifted some care from traditional inpatient settings to ambulatory, community-based, nursing facility, or home health care settings. The transfer of less acute patients to nursing homes and community-based care settings created additional job opportunities and increased demand for nurses in these settings. This change in service settings has also resulted in decreased lengths of patient stay in hospitals and a decline in the numbers of beds staffed. At the same time, the acuity of patients increased as those patients remaining in hospitals were those too medically complex to be cared for in another setting. In an additional effort to contain costs in the early 1990s, acute care facilities restructured and redesigned staffing patterns, introducing more non-RN caregivers and reducing the number of RNs on staff.
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Tags: Nurse Recruitment | Registered Nurses
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