As every nurse is well aware, there is a nursing shortage sweeping the state of Illinois and the entire country. Front-page newspaper stories paint a picture of a nursing shortage born of increased patient loads and escalating pressure to treat more people, more quickly, for less money.  Just as the health care needs of an aging population are increasing, the driving forces encouraging potential students to choose alternative careers are many:

• increasing professional opportunities for women outside nursing;
• stagnant pay;
• more onerous working conditions for many in nursing;
• decline in public perception of the attractiveness of the nursing profession.

While shortages have occurred in health care throughout history, and especially since World War II, experts are finding that the developing nursing shortage is uniquely serious.  It is considered both a supply and demand shortage, combining a broad range of issues that include: steep population growth in several states, a diminishing pipeline of new students to nursing, an aging workforce and a baby boom bubble that will require intense health care services.  These issues are occurring just as the majority of nurses are retiring and job opportunities within health care are expanding.  And this time the shortage is worldwide.  Already Canada, England, Ireland, the Philippines, Australia and Western Europe are reporting significant nursing shortages.

How does this correlate to the need for medication aides in Illinois?

• The growing shortage suggests that the limited supply of nurses needs to focus on actions that require a high level of skill such as critical thinking, quality improvement, and case management (including medication reduction efforts).
• Routine medication administration in settings such as long-term care facilities and assisted living communities, is happening right now in at least 28 states where there has been no evidence of higher medication error rates and where the short supply of nurses can work with the medication aide in order to stretch the limited health care dollar in a safe and efficient manner.

Click here to read a Fact Sheet on the nursing shortage and the growing need for nurses. 

Reports:
Nursing Workforce Report: Illinois Center for Nursing Resources

Nursing Shortage Fact Sheet: American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN)

What is Behind HRSA's Projected Supply, Demand, and Shortage of Registered Nurses?

HRSA graphs on Nursing Shortage

Facts on the Nursing Shortage in North America: Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing

The Long Term Care Workforce: Can the Crisis be Fixed? Problems, Causes and Options: Prepared for the National Commission for Quality Long-Term Care by the Institute for Aging Services

Invited Testimony to the National Commission for Quality Long-Term Care: Susan C. Reinhard, RN, PhD, Professor and Co-Director of Rutgers Center for State Health Policy, January26,2007