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Nurses Still the Most Trusted Profession, Doctors Fall to Fifth

Fri, 26 Jan 2024 22:33:54 GMT

Nurses remained the most trusted profession in the U.S., while medical doctors dropped to the fifth spot, according to Gallup's 2023 Honesty and Ethics poll opens in a new tab or window

Out of 23 professions, 78% of surveyed adults rated nurses as having "very high or high" honesty and ethical standards, while 56% said the same for medical doctors.

But the degree of trust across nearly all professions has fallen, with the percentage for doctors down 6 points versus the year prior

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(when it held the second spot in the rankings), and the percentage for nurses 7 points lower than in 2019 and 11 points lower than its peak in 2020.

"Nurses are an essential part of healthcare. Nurses spend more time with patients than any other healthcare provider, and patients can trust the person who is at their side," said Rayna Letourneau, PhD, RN, executive director of the Florida Center for Nursing, in an email.

"While nursing is still rated the most ethical profession, last year's rating was down to the lowest level since 2004. And that might be in part to things like allegations of fraudulent nursing programs," she added.

In early 2023, federal investigators uncovered a network of individuals selling fraudulent nursing diplomas and transcripts

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from private nursing schools, charging each "student" approximately $10,000 to $20,000 for fake academic credentials. Using these sham papers, buyers could take the national nursing board exam. Those who passed received nursing licenses that enabled them to obtain jobs as RNs and licensed vocational or licensed practical nurses.

As of December, 27 defendants have been charged and convicted

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in 2023 for their role in the "diploma mill" scheme, according to the U.S. Attorney's office.

Letourneau stressed the importance of addressing "unethical behavior in our profession and implement[ing] strategies to ensure it does not continue," while also "promot[ing] nursing excellence programs and the positive image of nursing."

Nurses were trailed in the 2023 trust poll by veterinarians (65%), and engineers (60%) who placed second and third. Dentists (59%) and pharmacists (55%) rounded out the top six.

Advertising practitioners (8%), car salespeople (8%), and senators (8%) all landed in the single-digits for trustworthiness, with members of Congress dead last at 6%, according to the poll.

Overall, trust in nearly every surveyed profession has fallen since 2019, with the exception of labor union leaders whom only 25% of Americans view as honest and ethical.

Megan Brennan, a research consultant, and Jeffery Jones, senior editor for Gallup, described the rationale behind this pattern of waning trust in a Gallup news article. "The image of many professions -- particularly those in the medical field -- sharply improved in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic. However, that effect was short-lived, and many ratings have since declined to all-time lows," they wrote.

Notably, despite being ranked in sixth place, pharmacists ratings reached "new lows" in 2023. Of the professions also included in 2019's poll, ratings for honesty and ethics dipped 6 percentage points on average.

Close to half of the 23 professions surveyed in 2023 reflect "meaningful differences by education level," meaning that respondents with a college degree rate professionals more positively than non-college graduates. Nurses and doctors were more likely to be viewed as having "very high or high" honesty and ethical standards among respondent who graduated college (85% and 64%, respectively) compared with respondents who did not (75% and 52%).

The poll also spotlighted partisan differences between Democratic and Republican respondents when it came to viewing nurses (85% vs 74%) and doctors (67% vs 48%) as having very high or high honesty and ethical standards.

The authors noted that party differences may be influenced in part by having a sitting Democratic president. "In 2019, the last time these items were asked and when Republican Donald Trump was in office, about half as many professions as today showed meaningful party differences," they noted.

Gallup has been conducting surveys on the honesty and ethics of professionals since 1976, and annually since 1990.

The latest ratings are from telephone interviews conducted from Dec. 1 to Dec. 20, 2023. The poll was based on a random sample of 1,013 adults living in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

"In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls," the authors noted.

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About 100,000 nurses left the workforce due to pandemic-related burnout and stress, survey finds

Tue, 25 Apr 2023 18:57:59 GMT

By Kyla Russell, CNN

Click here to view the article on CNN.com

4 Self-Care Tips for Nurses

Tue, 18 Oct 2022 14:25:23 GMT

There’s no doubt that nursing is one of the most important jobs out there, but it’s also one of the toughest in many ways. A study conducted by the University of Illinois found that 51% of healthcare professionals from all over the world experienced burnout during the pandemic.

A heavy workload, stress from the job, time pressure, and lack of support and resources contributed to this fatigue. On top of all that, nursing is sometimes a thankless task, where the work isn’t appreciated or rewarded enough. Self-care is crucial to keep you at the top of your game physically, mentally, and emotionally. Here are a few things nurses can do to take care of themselves.

Pay attention to your body

You may be adept at caring for other people’s bodies, but looking after yours is just as important. Taking walks, biking, and lifting weights are easy ways to stay active off the clock. Physical exercise can also help with thinking, problem-solving, and regulating emotions, according to the CDC . Eating healthy and staying hydrated also ensures your body and brain function at their best. Instead of ordering fast food or going to the cafeteria, prepare healthy meals at home to bring to work. A healthy body can bring out the best of your abilities to reach your peak condition.

Find time for yourself

Nurses spend a lot of time with all kinds of people, patients and staff alike. It can be overwhelming having to attend to the needs of others, so when you have the time, treat yourself to something nice or do something you enjoy to help you relax. Read a book, paint, go to a spa, spend time in nature — do whatever helps you unwind the best. Even buying yourself the food you’ve been craving for some time or spending the whole day lounging at home can help you feel much more rested and restored.

Reach out to others

Struggling in silence will not help negative feelings dissipate; you’ll more likely feel worse. A study published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships pointed out that socializing with others and being able to confide in trusted people can lessen loneliness and depressed moods. If you’re feeling worn out, reach out to a mentor for guidance or talk to fellow nurses and share experiences in the workplace. You can call or meet up with friends and family for support too. You don’t have to talk about the heavy stuff right away. Just conversing with someone about anything can be a big stress reliever. If you have the time and resources, speaking with a therapist can further help you process your thoughts and emotions.

Acknowledge your worth

Nurses often don’t get the recognition they deserve, affecting their self-esteem. However, nurses should always remind themselves of the critical role they play in patient care. A feature on nurse appreciation by Maryville University highlights how nurses can help reduce the lengths of patient stays, patient mortality rates and a number of other preventable issues — particularly during times of crisis. When the going gets tough, remember that the work you do changes and saves lives, and that has immeasurable value. Be a pillar of support for other nurses and uplift each other in good times and bad. Having others to relate to can make your experiences feel less isolating, and they’ll know how to encourage you best. Knowing that your care for others is making a difference is an excellent form of self-care too.

For all the things nurses do for others, they deserve the best opportunities and work that knows their value. Nurseify finds the best assignments and facilities for them and makes sure they’re well taken care of.

Exclusively for nurseify.app

By J Olivar

How Nursing Diversity Helps Improve Patient Advocacy and Outcomes

Wed, 28 Sep 2022 14:45:59 GMT

NURSES LEADING INNOVATION

When the nursing profession reflects the communities it cares for, healthcare improves for everyone. Today, Hispanic nurses make up just 6% of the workforce in the United States. In recognition of Hispanic Heritage Month, Adrianna Nava, president of the National Association of Hispanic Nurses (NAHN) shares how this organization is working to address the needs of current and future Hispanic nurses and the communities they represent. September is Hispanic Heritage Month, a wonderful opportunity to celebrate and highlight the critical work of the National Association of Hispanic Nurses. Though the Hispanic population makes up more than 18% of the U.S., Hispanic nurses represent approximately 6% of the nursing workforce. Adrianna Nava, PhD, MPA, MSN, RN, president of the National Association of Hispanic Nurses (NAHN) shares her perspective on the importance of, and barriers to, a nursing workforce that represents the communities it cares for, and how workforce diversity is an important path to patient advocacy.

With 44 chapters in 24 states, NAHN is the leading professional society for Hispanic nurses, founded in 1975 by Ildaura Murillo-Rhode, PhD, RN, ND, FAAN. NAHN’s mission is promoting safe, quality health care to Latino communities, recognizing excellence among Latino nurses, providing mentorship opportunities for its 1,700 members, and developing highly qualified Latino nurses through educational, professional and leadership opportunities.

In addition to her work with NAHN, Nava is also a registered nurse, and passionate about increasing access to care. After witnessing how access-related disparities lead to poor health outcomes, she’s focused on decreasing health disparities in her community by growing the leadership capabilities of Hispanic nurses. Nava currently serves as a Research Scientist at the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA).

What’s your perspective on the critical need for Hispanic nurses, and how is NAHN supporting expanding this workforce?

Adrianna Nava : The Latino population is increasing in this country, so it’s important to have workforce representation that reflects our community, both at the bedside and in leadership roles. Diversity leads to advocacy – when there’s more representation within an organization, there’s more insight into how the population might react to certain clinical procedures and policies, and better ways to address barriers to care.

When you have a senior leadership team that is reflective of the workforce, the organization, or even the patient population, there is ample opportunity for increased engagement of diversity of thought.

We encourage our members to pursue leadership opportunities to be the voice of their community, to be the person that represents a different perspective, one that traditionally hasn't been brought to light very often. And when it comes to addressing health disparities and health equity, it’s about elevating those voices that historically have been marginalized.

In addition to expanding the Hispanic nursing workforce, what is your long-term vision for the future of NAHN?

AN: At NAHN, we aspire to be a national leader of Latino health. When there are Latino health issues, as organizations and as nurses, we represent our community, we have our ears to the ground. Our volunteers go out and help those communities – a lot of individuals don’t necessarily have access to care, because they’re uninsured or under-insured, or they are undocumented. So, we want to have that presence – we want to be the go-to organization when there are issues pertaining to Latinos and be a part of coming up with solutions.

And to do that, we would need to have representation in every state in the country. Currently we don't, and that would be the biggest wish list for us – to have a chapter in every state. If there isn’t a chapter in your state , we can help you develop one . To initiate a chapter, you need at least 10 members, and you must be 40 to 60 miles away from another chapter. Those who are interested are also welcome to join virtually for another chapter’s meetings, or they can participate at our annual conference .

We’re also teaching nurses how to impact policy — including the organizational, state, and national levels. We have established our annual NAHN Latino Leadership Institute (LLI) , where we provide leadership and policy skill building to our local Chapter leaders. In addition, in February 2023, we are hosting our Hispanic/Latino Health Policy Summit-where we’ll join our interdisciplinary counterparts in medicine, dietetics, and pharmacy in Washington, DC. We’re excited to come together and elevate priority-level health issues to our members of Congress.

What’s your perspective on the national shortage of nurses? What do you think is making it harder for nurses to enter and stay in the workforce?

AN: I think the trajectory of nursing as a profession has led us to this point, where we’ve been consistently undervalued and invisible. The work of nurses isn’t tied to anything within the healthcare system, including payer reimbursement. Nurses know this, so they’re no longer choosing to work at the bedside as they pursue promotional and leadership opportunities, sometimes even outside the profession. Our career paths are more mobile and versatile than ever.

Although the profession itself has changed, unfortunately, the way nursing is run within hospitals has not, and there’s a lot of opportunity for innovation. So many people are interested in nursing, but the profession must evolve and re-engage the workforce.

NAHN is engaged in finding short-term and long-term solutions here, too. In Florida, we’ve partnered with Keiser University, which is a member of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, on the creation of the Keiser University Nursing Advisory Council. This group is focused on developing practical solutions for nursing shortages in Florida. which is expected to be especially impacted by shortages. Our hope is that we can learn from being innovative in Florida and spread it out to other states.

What are some of the historical barriers that have kept more Hispanic individuals from entering the nursing profession?

AN: First, many Hispanic students lack role models in academia, so one of our missions at NAHN is to support and mentor students. We recently created a membership category for unlicensed personnel for guidance as they pursue a nursing degree.

There also aren’t enough nursing faculty members and leaders who represent the Latino community, and we’ve found that students feel more comfortable approaching and learning from someone who looks like them. If you don’t have representation, you may not feel like you belong within the profession. Within NAHN, members often feel inspired by the academic progression of their peers, and develop life-long mentors and friends who provide support to those who enter the organization seeking guidance.

There’s also the financial component. If you’re the first generation in the U.S., it can be a challenge to even think about the possibilities of where you can go. There are a lot of great universities providing funding, but sometimes if you think you don’t belong, that can be a limiting factor. This past year, we awarded $10,000 in scholarship to eight nurses through the Abbott Scholarship Fund . And for those who do enter the profession at the bachelor’s or associate’s level, we help nurses looking to grow by providing funding for advanced degrees and licenses.

Our Latino students sometimes come from underserved communities, so their education didn’t necessarily prepare them to be competitive when it comes to math and science, and that can put them at a disadvantage when they apply to nursing school. Pipeline programs are one way for students to attain their goal of becoming a nurse and pursuing advanced degrees in the future, and it may also be helpful to have education policy-oriented solutions, focused on universal pre-school as a start. Studies have shown that early interventions have resulted in positive results, including higher school achievement over time. It would also be beneficial for the nursing profession to be recognized as a STEM field. Students may not be aware that nursing requires extensive coursework in math and science and may de-emphasize the importance of these classes.

What resources or advice do you recommend to current and future nursing students?

AN: Well, I actually was rejected by my dream nursing school, and I ended up taking some time off. But while I was working as a nurse assistant, I would see other nurses doing the work that I could do and I thought to myself, I can keep going. So, I applied again to a different school, and was accepted. And while I was in that nursing school, I became really interested in public health, which led to a health policy internship in Washington, DC. It was there that I was introduced to professors at the University of Pennsylvania, which is where I obtained my master’s degree.

So, a lot of times you might not get the pathway that you initially wanted; but in those moments, you’re opening yourself up to opportunities that you might not have pursued otherwise. This opens doors that you never knew were there.

Also, look to a professional nursing organization so you don’t have to navigate your professional career on your own. By joining an organization like NAHN, you can be part of a larger network with access to new experiences and broad connections across the country. If you’re looking for career advancement or leadership opportunities within the nursing profession, there’s room for you at NAHN.

Aneurysm Awareness Month: Local nurse shares story of survival

Wed, 28 Sep 2022 14:43:46 GMT

Colleagues at Baptist Health came to together to help her on her road to recovery

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Six and a half million Americans are walking around with an unruptured aneurysm, and when it bursts, it can cause serious damage and even death.

September is Aneurysm Awareness Month, and doctors want people to be aware of the risks of having one.

A local nurse who survived an aneurysm wants to help educate people that it can happen when you least expect it.

Dawn Whitehurst said was getting ready to start her day, when she dropped her water bottle on the kitchen floor. She struggled back to her bedroom to alert her husband, Wade Whitehurst.

“I remember saying, ‘I need to go to the emergency room. I am not well. I’ve had an accident, and I need help,’” she recalled.

A pediatric nurse at Wolfson Children’s Hospital, Dawn knew something was serious. Wade did, too.

“I think the scariest part is that our daughter was a witness to all this,” said Wade. “She was in the bathroom saying, ‘Maybe mommy needs water, maybe she needs something to eat.’”

Dawn was rushed to the hospital, where doctors determined she had an aneurysm, which is a type of stroke when a blood vessel bursts in the brain.

Dawn spent 71 days in the intensive care unit, much of her time in a coma.

Her medical colleagues at Baptist Health, caring for one of their own, made a prayer blanket as she recovered.

“It was very obvious that they cared for me,” Dawn said.

“Really just supported us in every way,” said Wade. “From meals to anything we needed during that time while Dawn was hospitalized here.”

Dr. Nima Aghaebrahim, who was part of her medical team, said knowing Dawn was a nurse at Wolfson took an emotional toll.

“It hit home because she was working right next door and now she was in the neurointensive care unit in very poor condition,” he said.

He said that while most people who have an aneurysm show no symptoms until it happens, it’s still important to know the signs when they do show up, like a serious headache or double vision. He also said time is extremely important.

“Time is brain. That’s a term that we’ve been using — which is true, especially if you’re dealing with a stroke. Bleeding in the brain is a type of a stroke. So every minute, every second counts,” he said

A family of strong faith, the Whitehursts credit their trust in God for getting them through such a difficult time.

“Watching God move in this situation, I felt like He comforted me, He consoled me,” Dawn said. “He told me I was always going to be fine if I listened. I just needed to listen to Him.”

A year later, the couple said, things are slowly getting back to normal and they’re taking it day by day.

“Could things be better? Sure. But things could be a lot worse, and she could not be here with us today,” said Wade.

“I for some reason think the Man has big plans for me. I’m not sure what they are, but I’m just going to keep on,” said Dawn.

Nima urges people to know the risks of getting an aneurysm — smoking, high blood pressure and family history are some of them. He said it’s also important to get screened and have that conversation with a primary care doctor.

Houston-based gig platform for nurses to launch app next month

Tue, 13 Sep 2022 14:39:55 GMT

HELP IN HEALTH CARE

Health care executive Benjamin Foster knows that nurses are essential — especially in times of crisis.

In 2017, when Hurricane Harvey struck Houston, he watched as local health care organizations struggled to find nurses who could meet the desperate need at hard-to-reach facilities. And as Regional Chief Human Resources Officer at HCA Houston Healthcare, he had also grown accustomed to the high costs and inefficiencies of traditional medical staffing agencies.

In 2020, in response to the demand for nurses in the pandemic, he decided it was time to act, launching Nurseify in May of that year.

Nurseify is an on-demand platform that allows nurses and health care organizations to take part in the gig economy. With guidance from Rama Walker, Nurseify’s Chief Nursing Officer and Chief Operating Officer with a background in ER administration, the platform uses AI to match nurses with facilities looking to fill short-term assignments.

Nurses are able to set their rates and schedules through the app. Health care facilities can directly vet applicants through their profiles and ratings. The platform also can predict when there might be a higher demand for contract nurses at various facilities based on vacancies and increased patient volume.

“We hope to empower nurses and help individuals take control of their careers by offering transparency and a way to create schedules to better fit their lifestyles,” says Foster, CEO of Nurseify, in a statement. “In this gig-economy, it’s imperative to have an easy and effective way for nurses and healthcare facilities to communicate directly about opportunities, and Nurseify provides a place where they can do just that.”

Additionally, the platform features educational, financial, and support resources for nurse users, as well as options to work with entrepreneurial mentors and wellness coaches with the goal of empowering nurses in what's proven to be a demanding field, especially since the onset of the pandemic.

“As nurse advocates, we prioritize an honest hiring process and nurses’ work-life balance and overall wellbeing,” Walker adds in a statement.

According to the Nurseify team, more than 5,000 nurses have created profiles on the platform at press time; and 60 healthcare facilities have access to Nurseify.

Through the Nurseify mobile app, which launches in May, the company aims to attract more users and health care facilities.

Currently the company is focused on its operations in Texas, Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina, which were pilot states for Nurseify. But the company aims to expand nationally and internationally in the future.

Houston-based acute care startup Kare Technologies launched a similar platform for staffing within the senior living facility and caregiving realms in 2021. Read more about that company here.

Houston based wellness app Nurseify offers free support for nurses

Tue, 13 Sep 2022 14:39:52 GMT

New Houston-based app Nurseify is designed to offer wellness assistance to nurses.

For the past two years, healthcare workers and nurses have been at the frontline of the COVID-19 pandemic. With increased hours and decreased flexibility, nurses are struggling with mental health issues and burnout. Travel and relief nurses, shuffled from facility to facility, face complicated scheduling and wage issues.

New Houston-based app Nurseify was designed to address the strain and burnout of nurses by offering a new approach to staffing and self care. The free app benefits relief nurses through its scheduling features, but it also serves as a multi-faceted wellness app for permanently staffed nurses. Some of the largest Houston area hospitals are located in Katy, including Houston Methodist West, Memorial Hermann West, Texas Children’s West and MD Anderson West.

Nurseify also offers legal advice, finance and accounting support, wellness counseling, physical training and job training resources to nurses.

Benjamin Foster, Nurseify CEO, was inspired to launch the app following Hurricane Harvey in 2017. He was working in human resources for Houston hospital systems at the time, and part of his job was trying to shuffle relief nurses through the hospital systems to offer respite for nurses that had been working constantly. The nurses had no autonomy over their schedules and were often working weeks on end without a break.

When the pandemic hit, the need for travel and relief nurses reached critical levels, and Foster realized that the problem had only intensified since Harvey, so he created Nurseify. Nurses can use the app to set their own schedules and wages at the facilities of their choice.

“What we want to be able to do is really kind of eliminate that middleman and the traditional staffing agency model and really empower nurses to set their own availability and schedules and rates on the platform,” Foster said. “We want to empower nurses to be able to take ownership of their work.”

One of the app’s most popular features is “Wellness Wednesday,” said Rama Walker, Nurseify CNO. Each Wednesday, Nurseify presents a new speaker on a nursing related subject. “We have different speakers that come on just to give tips and advice and guidance on all the things that impact nurses,” Walker said.

The app also features live events for Houston-area nurses.

In honor of Nurses Month, on May 31, Nurseify will be facilitating a continuing education webinar on PTSD that nurses may attend to receive continuing education credits. The webinar will be done in partnership with the University of Houston College of Nursing.

“It's free for the nurses to attend and to participate in, and it really addresses the trauma that nurses have experienced over the last few years due to COVID and how taxing it has been on their personal life,” Walker said.

Nurseify also promotes legislation that supports nurses, Foster said. “We work with our Congressional representatives to discuss legislation that we believe is nurse-friendly,” he said. “We want to see greater protections for nurses when they're in the facility, and one of our biggest priorities is to make abuse against nurses the same protections that (police) officers receive.”

By creating a platform that supports and unifies nurses, Foster hopes Nurseify can revolutionize the way the healthcare industry operates on a whole. “We're thinking about the whole nurse and the whole healthcare system by making it easy for nurses to do things they were once unable to do,” Foster said. “Technology can help make the whole process more efficient while empowering nurses, and that’s what we’re here to do."

Houston startup Nurseify growing gig-work platform for nurses, eyes more fundraising

Tue, 13 Sep 2022 14:39:51 GMT

A Houston-based startup is working to bring flexible work scheduling and wellness to the nursing sector.

Nurseify was launched by health care executives and nursing leaders after seeing inefficiencies and high costs while using traditional health care staffing agencies. The Nurseify platform connects experienced nurses with hospitals and large health care facilities in need of staffing support.

For health care facilities, Nurseify says it can help save costs on finding nursing labor. Meanwhile, nurses are able to set their own rates and their own schedules to boost their earnings and create a better work-life balance.

The concept for Nurseify was formed after Hurricane Harvey in 2017, when issues arose around hospital staffing, CEO Benjamin Foster said. But Nurseify's business was also accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic , when traveling nurses have been in high demand across the country.

"What we're trying to solve from a business model standpoint is how can we support facilities by having maximum flexibility on bringing in nurses to provide care," Foster said.

Rama Walker , COO and chief nursing officer for Nurseify, said the company works to assist nurses in other ways outside of scheduling. The company offers nurses resources for wellness and mental health and hosts weekly "Wellness Wednesdays" on social media. Nurseify also can help support nurses seeking to form their own businesses through financial projections, market assessments and backend support.

"We want our nurses to feel connected to us," Walker said.

More than 6,000 profiles have been created on the Nurseify platform since it launched, Foster said.

The Nurseify platform is currently piloting with users in Texas, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina and Nevada. Hospitals are Nurseify's top client base, and the company works with some of the bigger hospital providers in the Houston region, Foster said.

The company also sees opportunity in growing relationships with post-acute care providers with staffing needs, like rehabilitation hospitals, long-term acute care hospitals, hospices and nursing homes.

Nurseify raised capital through a convertible note round late last year. The startup is targeting another capital raise beginning in the first quarter of 2023. Additional funding will help Nurseify expand its staff up to a team of eight to 10 employees and bring more health care providers and nurses onto the platform, Foster said.

Before founding Nurseify in 2020, Foster was regional vice president and regional chief human resources officer for HCA Houston Healthcare, the local division for Nashville-based HCA Healthcare Inc. (NYSE: HCA). Walker also came from HCA Houston Healthcare, where she most recently served as administrator and led facility operations for two freestanding emergency centers for HCA Houston Healthcare Southeast.

Houston innovator tackles growing nursing shortages with startup platform

Tue, 13 Sep 2022 14:39:47 GMT

HOUSTON INNOVATORS PODCAST EPISODE 148

The past few years have been challenging for health care workers, and even before the pandemic, hospital systems were facing a nursing shortage, says Benjamin Foster on this week's episode of the Houston Innovators Podcast.

It was during Hurricane Harvey that Foster, leading human resources at Gulf Coast Division at the time, saw a huge need for an alternative to hiring short-term nurses quickly. That's when he had the idea for Nurseify , a platform that allows for nurses to find jobs — and for facilities to find nurses with the specialties they need. The platform is now live in five pilot states — Texas, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and Nevada.

"Part of the reason those are our pilot states is those are states that are projected to have five of the top 10 nursing shortages," Foster says on the show. "We also see a lot of seasonality in those states. If there are certain periods of time where patient volume increases a lot, you need to bring in more nurses."

Now, having launched, Foster says he's focused on growing density in those regions — for both the facility side and the nursing side — so that there are more opportunities for users of the platform.

Nurses are facing a significant amount of burnout — in part due to what they went through during the pandemic, but also because of the stressful work environments due to hiring misalignment. Foster says he's intentionally designed the platform to be supportive of nurses.

"We want Nurseify to be known as the most nurse-friendly company in the world. We believe we can bridge the gap between administration and operations and nurses," Foster says. "We want Nurseify to become a verb at some point."

In addition to being a marketplace for nurses and health care facilities, Foster says he is staying completely tapped into ways to provide resources and support for the user base — which, statistically, is a primarily female industry.

"Nurses are worn out because we've asked them to work so much during the pandemic, and I would argue that as an industry, we have not done enough to protect them," he says. "We want to be a voice for that."

Foster shares more on the future of Nurseify and the difference his platform is making in the industry on the podcast. Listen to the interview below — or wherever you stream your podcasts — and subscribe for weekly episodes.

New survey assesses the biggest hurdles, goals for health plans amid a rapidly changing landscape

Tue, 13 Sep 2022 14:39:45 GMT

New challenges require priority readjustment

A dramatic pickup in the pace of change for payers in the last year has created new priorities for health plan leaders, a new survey has found.

The survey, conducted by payment integrity solution HealthEdge, reached more than 300 health plan leaders. Common themes, per a report of the survey results, included the move to newer systems amid a digital transformation, rising demand for real-time data access and the promise of interoperability.

Some of the biggest threats facing health plans are new regulations, growing consumer expectations, competition and the transition to value-based payment strategies. The top two challenges are managing costs and driving operational efficiencies, which were lower on the list of priorities just last year. Tied in third place are member satisfaction and alignment of IT and business needs.

There are several drivers of these hurdles. Post-pandemic, there are notably more claims. Long delays in care have also led to rising costs, and outdated systems have required significant investment to keep up with demand. Having a solid digital baseline can help payers eliminate manual, repetitive processes, the report suggested. Payers also believe increasing interoperability and improving claims accuracy helps alleviate administrative costs.

Less than a third of respondents said the vast majority of their claims were paid accurately the first time around. When claims are not paid accurately, the average cost per claim goes up; this year, that cost rose for a greater portion of respondents compared to last year. “These results indicate the heightened focus on managing costs through advanced automation solutions found in modern systems will likely result in health plans revisiting their payment integrity strategies,” the report noted.

Meanwhile, when it comes to consumers, expectations are rising amid booming retail experiences offered by tech players like Amazon and Google. By leveraging similar real-time data, care managers can build stronger relationships with their consumers, the report suggested.

Nearly a quarter of respondents said their technology is not able to keep pace with new Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services standards and rules. When respondents were asked what the most important capabilities of a tech vendor are to help move to modern technologies, they indicated customer service, modern features, ease of configuration, security and scalability. However, priorities differed across different titles. A CEO preferred modern technology and security, while chief information officers and chief technology officers also preferred scalability. General managers favored quick time on return on investment, and directors preferred customer service.

When asked what they would do with the resources saved from reducing costs and increasing efficiencies, the biggest portion of respondents said they would invest in a new region or line of business, consider new partnerships or acquisitions and re-leverage resources for innovation.

Among the top goals for plans are increasing quality, improving provider relationships, meeting regulatory requirements and increasing member satisfaction. To that end, more than half of respondents plan to invest in innovation, align business and IT goals, improve engagement strategies and modernize technology.

“Despite the chaos and challenges posed to health plans today, growth is possible, particularly today for those health plans on modern systems,” the report concluded. In fact, by some estimates, growth is expected to continue.

The state of travel nursing in 2022

Tue, 13 Sep 2022 14:39:44 GMT

New changes for travel nurses

Travel nursing is in a state of transition in 2022. Throughout the pandemic, COVID-related hospitalizations combined with staffing shortages and provider burnout led many hospitals to increase travel nurse usage to meet demand. But as hospitalizations surged, so did the cost of travel nursing contracts — and many nurses experienced an unprecedented period of demand and high compensation for their services. However, as COVID-19 trends toward endemic status and hospitalizations subside, that trend is changing.

Travel nursing: Then and now

Eleonore Ruffy, Vice President of RNnetwork, says that prior to the pandemic, travel nursing was a regular, steady business. “Hospitals staffed approximately two percent of their nursing positions with travel nurses,” Ruffy says. “Here at RNnetwork, we had roughly 8,000 open positions nationwide at any given time.”

However, as the COVID-19 pandemic surged — especially surrounding the Omicron variant in December 2021 and January 2022 — demand for travel nurses soared. COVID highlighted the value of nurses, but was also a tipping point, according to one industry expert.

“COVID patients were treated largely by nurses. So, as the hospitals filled and nurses treated those specific patients, demand spiked. Compounding the issue, nurses began to get very burned out from the experience, and many left their permanent positions or left the profession altogether,” Ruffy says. “At its highest, contingency nurses accounted for an estimated nine percent of total contingency staffing. Here at RNnetwork, we peaked at 55,000 open positions nationwide. As you can imagine, when supply didn’t increase, bill rates and pay rates went up dramatically at that time.”

Industry data suggest the average pay for travel nurses increased from $1,706 per week in December 2019 to around $3,290 per week in December 2021. The travel nursing industry doubled in size over the last year. And in 2021, travel nursing revenue tripled to an estimated $11.8 billion, up from $3.9 billion in 2015.

As COVID-related hospitalizations decrease and relief funding tapers off, some experts predict the travel nursing “bubble” may burst. Ruffy acknowledges the reduction in demand, but says demand and pay are still much higher than pre-pandemic levels.

“It has dropped back down, but it’s still much higher than it was before COVID,” says Ruffy. “We have more than 20,000 open positions. And while hospitals are making incremental adjustments to pay, rates are still much higher than pre-pandemic rates.”

Traveler and permanent staff rapport

In addition to demand and compensation, the pandemic impacted other areas of travel nursing, including increasing the tension that sometimes exists between permanent staff and travelers.

“There are definitely challenges to travel nursing,” says Ruffy. “And some got better and some felt more intensified during the pandemic.”

“Long-term relationships can be harder to forge as you’re seen as the new provider and have to learn new systems and new processes with new team members. Sometimes a stigma exists if someone is not a permanent nurse, and that stigma was exacerbated during the pandemic. As travel nursing compensation increased, that gap widened.”

“However, in areas like Florida and Arizona where the census changed a lot during the year, facilities have been very traveler friendly,” says Ruffy. “Facilities in these areas have historically been much more accustomed to having travel nurses. They are more welcoming, as a result, and tend to give a better experience overall because they have been more used to having temporary staff.”

Ruffy hopes that the pandemic-driven demand for travel nurses will help make it more standard practice for more areas and therefore contribute to friendlier work environments.

“As more and more facilities have gotten more comfortable using travel nurses, the experience has been enhanced,” says Ruffy.

Travel nursing outlook

As for the outlook for the travel nursing market, Ruffy is optimistic.

“I think the outlook is still very bright for travel nurses. Even though COVID seems to have settled, demand and travel nurse pay are still higher than pre-pandemic levels, and there is a really good opportunity for nurses who are interested in the travel profession to get in,” says Ruffy. “Travel nurses today may not expect to earn peak crisis pay, but they’re also not going to experience the challenges of peak-pandemic demand, either.”

How to cover the cost of your master’s degree in nursing

Tue, 13 Sep 2022 14:39:43 GMT

Insight into repaying a master's degree in nursing

While the salary you can snag after getting your master’s degree in nursing may be high, the initial expense can be costly. Most programs last one to two years, and Nurse Journal estimates that the cost of a master’s degree in nursing (MSN) can range from $35,000 to $70,000, with some schools charging up to $100,000.

Demand for nurses with advanced degrees is growing; jobs for nurse practitioners, nurse midwives, and nurse anesthetists are expected to grow 45% from 2020 to 2030. And there are some new avenues for students to get the cost of their MSN degree reimbursed. Last November, the U.S. House of Representatives included $500 million for schools of nursing in underserved areas in the Build Back Better Act, acknowledging the need for more nurses with better resources and higher education.

That means if you’re looking to get your master’s degree in nursing, you may be able to get the cost of your MSN degree reimbursed—in full or partially. Read on for some of your options for financial support.

Sizable scholarships and grants can make a difference

The high demand for more nursing professionals has inspired many institutions and organizations to develop grant and scholarship programs for those pursuing advanced degrees in the field. The following scholarships grant awards of $10,000 or more to qualifying professionals.

Advanced Practice Healthcare scholarship. This scholarship is offered by the California Department of Health Care Access and Information (HCAI) and grants financial assistance to prospective nurse practitioners, clinical nurse specialists, and nurse midwives attending a program approved by California Board or committee-approved program. Students who are selected can receive up to $25,000 and will spend 12 months practicing full-time in a medically underserved area.
Air Force Health Professions scholarship program. Funded by the Air Force, this scholarship program is designed for nurses seeking a graduate degree who want to become a nurse practitioner. The Air Force covers tuition and book fees and provide the scholarship winner with a monthly stipend—amounting to up to $45,000 per year, plus a $2,000 monthly stipend. In return, students will commit to serve as active duty in the Air Force, serving one year for every one year of scholarship.
Tylenol Future Care Scholarship. The company awards 35 scholarships to students pursuing an advanced degree in health care; 10 scholarships in the amount of $10,000 and 25 scholarships for $5,000. Applicants must be a U.S. resident and a graduate student or college senior enrolling in a graduate program.
Nurses Educational Funds, Inc. (NEF) Scholarships. NEF scholarships are available to those students who are a member of a national professional nursing association and are pursuing a master’s degree in nursing. Scholarship amounts range. All applicants need to have at least two semesters of study remaining after being notified about winning an award.
AfterCollege/AACN $10,000 scholarship fund. This scholarship fund supports students who are seeking a baccalaureate, master’s or doctoral degree in nursing and offers a $10,000 scholarship, with $2,500 awarded each quarter. Those students seeking to become nursing faculty or are in RN-to-MSN programs may receive special consideration.
National Association of Hispanic Nurses scholarships. NAHN scholarships are awarded annually to active members enrolled in accredited licensed practical nurse, associate, diploma, baccalaureate, and graduate degree nursing programs. Scholarship offerings range from $1,000 to full tuition coverage. Some NAHN scholarships require separate applications.
ENA Foundation Academic scholarships. There are opportunities for more than 30 scholarships for emergency nurses pursuing a master’s degree in nursing administration, nursing education or public health or who are getting a master’s to become a nurse practitioner.

Already have your degree? Look into loan repayment programs

One avenue to eliminating graduate degree-induced debt is to apply for a loan repayment program. While this list is non-exhaustive, the following government-funded programs cover most (if not all) of outstanding student loan debt in exchange for servicing medically underserved regions.

Nurse Corps Loan Repayment Program. This payment program will cover up to 85% of unpaid nursing education debt for registered nurses, advanced practice registered nurses (nurse practitioners, nurse midwives, nurse anesthetists), and nurse faculty. Award recipients must work for two years in a critical shortage facility or an eligible nursing school as nurse faculty.
Indian Health Service. Supported by the National Health Service Corps, the IHS helps clinicians repay their eligible health profession education loans in exchange for two years of service in health facilities serving American Indian and Alaska Native communities. The IHS will pay up to $40,000, and nurses don’t need to be of American Indian or Alaska Native heritage to qualify.
National Health Service Corps Loan Repayment Program. Nurses who commit to working at an approved location for at least two years can receive loan repayment assistance from this program. Nurse practitioners, including those practicing in the adult, family, pediatric, women’s health and geriatrics fields, are eligible. Certified nurse-midwives are also eligible. Sites must be located in designated health professional shortage areas. Award winners who commit to full-time service can earn up to $50,000 over two years and those who commit to half-time service can earn up to $25,000 for two years.

Here’s what nurse salaries look like in 2022

Tue, 13 Sep 2022 14:39:42 GMT

New finds in 2021 nursing salaries

Few workers have been under the microscope in recent years like nurses. As the pandemic fundamentally altered most everything about the way we live and work over the past two-plus years, nurses in hospitals, health clinics, and doctor’s offices around the country have largely stood by, working long shifts, and bearing the brunt of the pandemic’s horrors.

It’s been extremely difficult for many of them, too—too difficult, in many cases. In fact, health care workers, including nurses, quit their jobs between February 2020 and October 2021, according to the results of a 2021 survey conducted by Morning Consult. And another 31% of nurses polled had considered quitting. That’s led to fewer health care workers across an array of roles, including nurses, and many hospitals and clinics that were already struggling with a nurse shortage have had to scramble to attract and hire people.

Hospitals paid $24 billion more in labor costs during the pandemic and saw worker overtime hours increase by 52%, while the use of agency and temporary labor increased by 132% as of September 2021, per data from PINC AI.

In effect, the increasing scarcity of nurses, supercharged by the pandemic, has served as the primary catalyst for a boost in nursing salaries in recent years. For prospective nurses who are considering a difficult but potentially lucrative career path, a relevant question is: What do salaries look like this year and beyond? Here’s what some experts told Fortune.

Nurses are coming off a strong year for salaries in 2021

The median annual wage for registered nurses was $77,600 in May 2021, according to the most-recent figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nurses in the 90% percentile of earners were bringing in more than $120,000 per year.

“Nursing wages have increased significantly since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic,” says Dr. Jason Shafrin, a senior managing director at FTI Consulting in the Center for Healthcare Economics and Policy, and the founder and editor of Healthcare Economist. “Wages of registered nurses have increased a little over 2%,” he says, citing a recent study published in the journal Health Affairs, adding that “for nursing assistants and licensed practical nurses, wages increased by more than 10%.”

BLS data indeed shows that median pay totaled nearly $124,000 per year in 2021 for various types of nurses, including nurse anesthetists, nurse midwives, and nurse practitioners.

Of course, there are many variables that ultimately determine what any individual nurse will earn—including where they live and work, and their specialization. But for nurses currently working in the U.S., or students who are planning on becoming a nurse, the good news is that salaries are increasing. And an advanced degree, such as a master’s degree in nursing (MSN) can open up more, higher-paying opportunities for nurses.

Factors affecting nurse salaries in 2022

There are two primary reasons wages are rising, according to Shafrin, and they both stem from the pandemic. “Nursing has become a more dangerous occupation, particularly in the hospital setting, and wages need to rise to take this risk into account,” he notes.

What’s more, the health care industry increasingly relies on traveling nurses, which “offer hospitals a more flexible labor force”—but at a cost. Traveling nurses often work for agencies that “charge hospitals more for this flexibility,” Shafrin adds.

Over the longer term, staffing shortages will likely remain the biggest factor influencing overall nurse pay going forward—and again, that’s an issue that precedes the pandemic. A 2017 report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services projected that seven states would experience a shortage of registered nurses in 2030, while three would have a surplus.

“There’s such a need for nurses now between COVID and the great resignation,” says Mary Ellen Glasgow, a professor, and dean of the Duquesne University School of Nursing. “There’s a real demand for nurses.”

Nurses have additional earning potential through signing bonuses, and for fresh nursing school graduates, loan repayment plans, according to Glasgow. In Pittsburgh, where Duquesne is located, she says that some employers are offering sign-on bonuses of up to $10,000, and as much as $20,000 in loan repayment. For some nurses, that’s $30,000 in total incentives on top of increasing salaries.

Projections for nurse salaries in the years ahead

As mentioned, it’s expected that a nursing shortage will persist at least through the end of the decade, and it’s an issue that will, in all likelihood, be exacerbated by the pandemic. While higher average salaries do help make nursing a more attractive field, there’s a lot of work to do to shore up staffing needs at hospitals and clinics around the country.

Among nurse manager respondents, 71% reported an increase in open positions last year, and 76% said that “recruitment has become a greater challenge,” according to the results of a 2021 survey published by the American Nurses Association. However, salary was the most important single factor for the more than 4,500 respondents, meaning that they simply weren’t being paid enough. So, increased pay could put a dent in those open positions at many hospitals.

With a glut of open nursing positions, it’s prime time for nurses to ask for more money, or find a higher-paying position. Salaries may continue to increase in the coming years, but probably not at the rate seen recently. So, if nurses want a raise, now’s the time to ask for one.

That said, there will likely need to be more concessions made by employers than just salary increases, Glasgow says. “I think we really need to look at support for nurses,” she says, adding that especially following the pandemic, finances are becoming a secondary concern to their mental and physical health for many nurses.

“Psychological assistance would be helpful. Sabbaticals would be helpful,” she says. “It’s not all about money. Money is not going to fix burnout.”

Rounds with Leadership: Moving Beyond the Pandemic

Tue, 19 Jul 2022 22:03:57 GMT

Moving Beyond the Pandemic

Responding to COVID-19 has had a transformative impact on what we teach, how we teach, and how we practice. Nursing programs moved quickly to adapt curriculum to ensure that graduating nurses at all levels are better prepared to respond to current and future public health emergencies. Navigating the pandemic has underscored health inequities that persist throughout our healthcare system, with a disproportionately high death toll from COVID-19 among communities of color. We have all grown more acutely aware of the need to tend to the mental health and well-being of faculty, students, and clinicians to ensure the health of our colleagues during the most trying of times.

Driven by these challenges, the academic nursing community has made strides in building a healthier, more equitable, and resilient tomorrow as we move closer to the end of the pandemic. To showcase the work underway that is moving us toward a preferred future for nursing, AACN has joined with our colleagues at the National League for Nursing (NLN) to create a new video titled Paving the Way Forward: Academic Nursing’s Role in Moving Toward a Post-Pandemic Future. This video showcases 12 academic nursing leaders who share details about how their schools leveraged innovation and collaboration to create a new “normal.” The presenters address how nursing education continues to work toward eliminating health disparities, achieving health equity, and increasing diversity in learning and practice environments. Click the image below to access the video.

Newly Hired Nurses Working Most Shifts as Staffing Shortages Persist

Tue, 19 Jul 2022 22:01:13 GMT

As more experienced nurses leave the workforce and staffing shortages worsen, newly hired nurses are picking up more shifts.

Nursing tenure has decreased over the last year as staffing shortages persist, with newly hired nurses covering more 12-hour shifts at healthcare organizations, according to a study from Epic Research. The nursing workforce has experienced significant staffing shortages since the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Researchers analyzed data from more than 26 million nursing shifts across 189 healthcare organizations to determine nursing staff turnover rates.

The study considered the number of years nurses have been at their current organizations, the number of shifts covered by nurses new to the organizations, and the distribution of shifts based on how many years nurses have been with their organizations. Between March 2021 and March 2022, the median nursing tenure declined by 19.5 percent in all US regions from 3.38 years to 2.78 years. The median tenure fell more drastically in the West, decreasing by 32.2 percent. Meanwhile, tenure fell by 17.7 percent in the Northeast, 16.4 percent in the Midwest, and 11.3 percent in the South. At the same time, the number of shifts covered by new nurses increased across the country, with the most significant increases occurring in the South and West. The study defined new nurses as nurses who started at an organization in the last 30 days.

As of March 2022, 3.4 percent of all shifts were covered by new nurses in the South, 2.9 percent in the Midwest, and 2.6 percent in both the West and Northeast. Researchers found that the greatest number of 12-hour shifts were filled by nurses with less than one year of tenure. Between March 2021 and March 2022, that number rose by 55.5 percent, with the South and the West seeing the steepest changes.

For example, in March 2022, almost 500,000 shifts were worked by nurses who had been with their organizations for less than a year. In contrast, nurses who had ten years of tenure worked less than 100,000 shifts. In the South alone, nurses with less than one year of tenure worked almost 200,000 shifts, while nurses with between 10 and 15 years of tenure worked fewer than 50,000 shifts.

“These findings show that nurses are changing organizations or leaving the profession more frequently, highlighting the need for organizations to invest in retention and onboarding programs for nurses,” the study stated.

Recent data showed that the share of nurses considering leaving the profession increased from 11 percent in 2020 to 29 percent in 2021. Nurses cited inadequate compensation and heavy workloads as reasons for wanting to leave the field.

In 2021, the gender pay gap for registered nurses widened, with males making $14,000 more per year than females. Burnout and stressful environments have also contributed to high nurse turnover rates. A study from Incredible Health found that more than a third of nurses plan to leave their current position by the end of 2022. Experts predicted that the country may see a nursing shortage of between 200,000 and 450,000 registered nurses by 2025 if policymakers and healthcare stakeholders do not implement strategies to address workforce challenges.

Texas nurses say ban on abortion is merely the start of the health problems women will face

Tue, 19 Jul 2022 22:00:26 GMT

Health workers caring for pregnant women now face a bewildering array of legal questions.

AURORA, Colo. — Texas nurses Jessica Phillips and Neshia McDonald stared at each other in disbelief when they heard the news that abortions would soon be outlawed in the state.

The two were among hundreds of caregivers who learned that the U.S. Supreme Court had overturned Roe v. Wade as a national conference for nurses who specialize in women’s health was starting in Aurora, Colorado, last week.

“My first reaction was devastation,” said McDonald, who was at a workshop with Phillips and other nurses Saturday. “I never would’ve expected this in 2022, and I’m really just uncertain about the future of women’s health.”

The Supreme Court decided in a 6-3 vote to undo a nearly half-century precedent that had affirmed access to abortion as a constitutional right. It will now be up to each state to determine their own abortion laws, and half of them are poised to ban or severely limit the procedure. Through a “trigger law” that goes into effect 30 days after the Supreme Court releases a formal judgment, Texas will soon ban all abortions from the moment of fertilization with narrow exceptions only to save the life of a pregnant patient or prevent “substantial impairment of major bodily function.”

Many nurses and other health care providers have raised the alarm that banning abortion will have wide-sweeping effects, affecting lifesaving medical procedures beyond elective abortions. Medical professionals now worry about having to deal with complex legal questions about what they can and can’t do, sometimes in the middle of care in which every second matters.

No easy answers

The difficult questions started after Senate Bill 8 was passed in Texas. Phillips said after that statute was enacted, effectively banning abortions after about six weeks of gestation, she was shocked to hear physicians grapple with what they legally were allowed to do. And it’ll only get worse now that Roe was overturned.

“The law isn’t specific in what scenarios abortions are allowed — but it also shouldn’t be. Physicians should be the ones making that call,” said Phillips, who was a labor and delivery nurse for 17 years and now uses her expertise working for a health nonprofit. “A patient’s health should be between her and those providing care to her.”

Throughout the first days of the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses conference, which started Saturday, medical professionals have gone over what the myriad abortion laws in their home states allow them to do now that Roe’s protections are gone. Texas’ trigger law banning abortions is expected to go into effect in about two months.

Phillips said these situations might be hypothetical, but they all stem from real-world experiences that are impacted by the Supreme Court’s ruling. One example discussed was what to do if someone’s water breaks very early into the pregnancy. This could cause an infection, and the fetus is unlikely to survive, Phillips said.

Before Roe was repealed, doctors would typically perform an abortion and other treatments to keep the patient healthy. But under the Texas trigger law, physicians would be faced with a conundrum, she said. When is the patient sick enough to warrant lifesaving care? Is it right away, since doctors know that the patient will get an infection that could complicate other care or put her safety at risk? Or does the doctor first have to let the patient reach that point to avoid legal liability?

There are more and more questions like these every day, Phillips said.

“When is it considered grave enough to her health? Is it immediately because you know the outcome or do you have to wait for her to get sicker and sicker? Because you also have to consider that, if you wait for her to get sicker, delivering her is more complicated because sometimes they end up hemorrhaging or they’re already in organ failure or all sorts of things,” Phillips said.

Doctors will have to second-guess decisions not based on medical best practices but on abortion laws, she said. She fears it will lead to patients dying or not receiving the care they need. “To hear physicians who’ve been doing this forever even consider having to let someone get sick blows my mind,” she added. “It’s not something I’ve in my 17-year career ever heard of.”

There are also times when doctors perform abortions because they know a pregnancy will not be successful and the baby would die after being delivered, Phillips said. But under Texas’ laws allowed after Roe was repealed, pregnant people would be forced to deliver.

“That’s a very emotionally devastating experience,” Phillips said. “And we know Texas does not have adequate mental health services.”

Jonathan Webb, CEO of the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses, which has more than 2,000 members in Texas, said the organization has started conversations with prosecutors to help educate its members about what medical procedures might now be deemed criminal in their states.

Webb knows from experience the tough decisions parents sometimes must make: His wife was once diagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy, in which an embryo implants outside the uterus. Proceeding with the pregnancy would have been fatal to his wife.

“We had to make a difficult decision over prioritizing her life over the life of our unborn child,” Webb said. He can’t imagine being unable to make that decision on their own because of state law roadblocks.

The impact on people of color and the profession

AWHONN board member Suzanne Baird was working at Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women in Houston when the state’s so-called sonogram law went into effect in 2012. The law required women who wanted an abortion to first get a sonogram 24 hours before the procedure and have the doctor make the fetal heartbeat audible to the patient.

Baird said she saw firsthand as women, who were told they had a nonviable pregnancy and that the fetus would not survive, were made to see their unborn child one more time. “It was just cruel,” Baird said, who was assistant director of nursing clinic program development at the hospital. She was also in Texas in 2013 when the Legislature passed a law requiring doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at hospitals within 30 miles of an abortion clinic — a move that she said resulted in many clinics closing.

But back then, even as those restrictions went into effect, Baird said she couldn’t imagine that one day Roe v. Wade would be overturned — and the huge impact the decision would have on patients in Texas.

Baird was one of roughly 2,200 people attending the AWHONN conference just outside Denver. She was sitting in a board meeting Friday morning when the Supreme Court announced its decision to overturn the law. With Roe’s end, nurses anticipate an even more difficult world for their patients who face high-risk pregnancies in which the mother or fetus’ survival is in danger. Doctors and nurses will face even more difficult decisions about when to intervene and recommend terminating a high-risk pregnancy for fear of criminalization. Birth rates will likely go up and Baird fears maternal mortality rates will follow, she said.

The United States has the highest maternal mortality rate of all developed countries, with significant racial and ethnic disparities. Texas has among the highest pregnancy-related deaths in the nation. And unsafe abortions will increase because of the ban, said Sandra K. Cesario, AWHONN board president and the doctorate program director at Texas Woman’s University in Houston.

Abortion opponents have presented adoption as the solution for unwanted pregnancies, but abortion stops pregnancy, while adoption requires pregnant people to give birth, which comes with a host of potential complications that disproportionately affect people of color and low-income people.

“People of color often don’t have adequate access to health care anyway — and now will have their options completely eliminated,” McDonald said.

With Roe revoked, inequities about who can and can’t control their reproductive health care will only increase, Baird said. Tennessee, where she now works, has a trigger ban in effect that will make abortion illegal in the state within a minimum of 30 days after Roe is overturned. She anticipates surrounding states will pursue more abortion restrictions, which means patients may have to travel across at least two states to get abortion care if they so choose.

“Not all women will be able to do that,” she said. “The wealthy will be able to do that.” Cesario reflected back on some of the actions she’s taken as a nurse that helped end a patient’s pregnancy to save their life — and that would now be criminalized. “I guess I could be put in jail for things I did,” Cesario said.

McDonald, who is a nurse manager at an outpatient setting in Central Texas, said the end of Roe has complicated a lot, including her plans for her career. Both McDonald and Phillips fear that the repercussions of the Supreme Court’s ruling could exacerbate the ongoing shortage of nursing staff. Many nurses have been deeply affected by burnout from the COVID-19 pandemic, and the pair believes Texas’ looming abortion ban will send further doubts into practicing and would-be caregivers.

“This makes the future so scary. We don’t know what the decisions will be,” McDonald said. “We don’t want to withhold care from people.” While discussing the future of women’s and maternal health care, AWHONN members found some solace in each other this weekend. Phillips and McDonald said it was emotionally draining and difficult to learn about the Supreme Court’s decision, but it did help to be surrounded by a community of health workers — all of whom just want what’s best for their patients’ health.

“I can’t imagine having to learn about it with anyone else,” Phillips said.

Uncertainty for the future of health care hovered over the planned programming for the nurses’ conference. Attendees were soon asking if there was anything they could do. Hours after the Supreme Court announcement, those who arrived to the conference a day early began looking for any protests they could attend in nearby Denver.

Baird said she knew what her sign would say: “I can’t believe we still have to march for this.”

Texas lawmakers consider ‘workforce challenges’ in nursing homes, assisted living

Tue, 19 Jul 2022 15:19:57 GMT

NURSING HOME INVESTIGATIONS

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Long-term Care Ombudsman Patty Ducayet worries about nursing home residents left waiting on staff for help getting out of bed or to a bath. She told lawmakers she also thinks about low activities budgets which leave few resources to entertain residents, broken facility transport vans sitting in parking lots, and poorly maintained HVAC systems that affect residents and staff during winter weather or on hot, summer days.

Tasked with representing and advocating for residents in nursing homes and assisted living facilities, Ducayet told lawmakers she and her staff see the “strain” caused by the lack of resources at some operations. Ducayet testified before the Texas House Human Services Committee on Tuesday, as the lawmakers considered ways to improve the lives and safety of people living and working in long-term care facilities. The committee largely focused on workforce challenges and staff retention issues facing the industry.

Ducayet testified before the Texas House Human Services Committee on Tuesday, as the lawmakers considered ways to improve the lives and safety of people living and working in long-term care facilities. The committee largely focused on workforce challenges and staff retention issues facing the industry.

KXAN previously reported on a study that found around a 15% reduction in the skilled nursing workforce, over the course of the pandemic.

Last year, lawmakers directed the Department of State Health Services to distribute $2 billion for “surge staffing” in long-term care facilities, but some of this funding went to hospitals and infusion centers, as well. The same bill also provided the state’s Health and Human Services Commission with additional funding for staffing needs in these homes: $200 million in grant funding for nursing homes and $178 million for assisted living facilities.

Tuesday’s hearing focused on more long-term solutions and sustainable funding sources. Chairman Representative James Frank said it was important to highlight what “good” homes were doing right, while weeding out facilities that are not prioritizing patient care. “It makes it really hard to excited about putting more money, when the money is not actually going to help take care of the patient better,” Rep. Frank said.

Ducayet suggested lawmakers require facility owners to be more transparent in reporting financial information. She also recommended increased salaries for staff, retention bonuses, longevity pay, and minimum staffing ratios — which would require facilities maintain a certain number of employees per resident.

Vice President of Advocacy at LeadingAge Texas, Alyse Meyer, testified to lawmakers about barriers and unnecessary delays in getting nursing assistants tested, certified and licensed to work in these facilities. “To have, you know, a months-long delay between training and testing causes them to find employment elsewhere,” she said.

Several people testified that staffing shortages were already a concern in nursing homes and assisted living facilities prior to the pandemic. “For nursing homes in total in Texas, we need an additional 7,000 registered nurses and an additional 12,000 certified nursing assistants — and that’s pre-COVID. Again, that’s how far behind we were before the pandemic came,” said Kevin Warren, President and CEO of the Texas Health Care Association. H e said the goal was to incentivize these health care workers to see “long-term care as a long-term profession.”

2022—The Year of Change: Nurses Can Expect to See These Six Trends

Fri, 08 Jul 2022 18:05:59 GMT

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The two years since COVID-19 was first detected in America have introduced a profound change in all public-facing industries. Education, commerce, and even restaurants have changed business models and delivery systems to support social distancing and hands-free processes. Healthcare, too, has embraced changes, like increasing the use of telehealth when possible.

At the same time, nursing during COVID-19 was pushed to the limits with overcrowded hospitals, unprecedented death rates, lack of PPE, mandated overtime, staff shortages, and a perceived lack of support from administration.

The crisis pushed nursing into the spotlight, bringing plenty of praise but not enough change to a profession already in crisis. Nursing today may very well make 2022 the year of change needed to address systemic issues that have affected nursing since before the pandemic and the new problems that resulted from it.

What’s Ahead?

Here are a few of the issues to watch in nursing 2022 and some tips for nurses.

Continued Job Growth

Already deep in a nursing shortage that was predicted to worsen before COVID-19 even became a factor, the current staffing crisis shows no sign of slowing down. Before the pandemic, a shortage of nursing faculty, an aging population, and large numbers of nurses reaching retirement age were factors worsening the nursing shortage. 2022 is adding to the number of nurses burned out from the pandemic. A recent report by McKinsey & Company found that nearly one-third of registered nurses are considering leaving their patient-care roles. There will be no shortage of jobs looking ahead.

Increase in Home Health

The aging baby boomer population could increase the number of older Americans needing nursing home care by 75%. Still, many are opting to age in place, increasing the need for home health nurses. And again, COVID further increased the need. The demand will increase even more if the Choose Home Care Act of 2021 passes, greatly expanding Medicare patients’ access to home health services.

Increase in Online Education

One of the nursing trends accelerated by the pandemic is the move to online education. Distance learning programs were already popular options for RN-to-BSN bridge programs; the pandemic expanded online learning to other programs to reduce the transmission of COVID. In addition, some research shows that online learning has benefits like better retention that support online or hybrid learning as a valid model post-pandemic.

Demand for Training and Higher Education

Better training makes better nurses and patient outcomes. An American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) report found multiple studies tying decreased mortality to an increase in BSN-educated nurses. The same AACN report found most employers prefer BSN-educated nurses. As of 2021, more nurses were seeking bachelor’s degrees (or higher) than associate degrees to meet the growing demand. Furthermore, bachelor’s-educated nurses have more opportunities and higher salaries and are qualified for advanced roles like nurse manager.

Staff Support and Well-Being

One of the biggest failures throughout the pandemic was the unimaginable burden on medical staff. The stress, exhaustion, trauma, and lack of support are driving nurses to leave patient care in unprecedented numbers. According to an ebn report, 500k nurses will leave patient care this year, a number the pandemic accelerated by almost 20 years. The failures in staffing models, crisis readiness, and support for overwhelmed staff created a mental health crisis that went largely ignored during the pandemic. The number of nurses leaving patient care needs to be a wake-up call for health systems to prioritize the well-being of their staff.

Travel Nursing

COVID-19 surges prompted a wave of travel nursing that only grew as poor working conditions and frustration drove more nurses to leave their staff positions for lucrative travel assignments. Travel nursing grew by 35% in 2020 and is predicted to grow 40% more. The freedom to choose when and where to work, to take time off between assignments, and much higher wages are attractive to many nurses exhausted by the pandemic. With the number of nurses leaving bedside care in the next few years, travel nurses will continue to be in demand as healthcare systems struggle with the growing nursing shortage.

Looking Ahead

As is often the case, we need to look to the past to understand our future needs. The pandemic profoundly changed a healthcare system already in crisis—one that can’t survive without nurses. New nurses entering the workforce, and those who are not so new but are looking for a change, will have plenty of opportunities ahead. Education and self-advocacy are key in this job seekers market. There will also be opportunities to advocate for change in the profession as the healthcare industry struggles to move forward from the pandemic. Now is the time to raise our voices.

Government vows to recruit 10,000 overseas nurses by April 2022

Thu, 24 Mar 2022 18:23:44 GMT

Health and social care secretary Sajid Javid has pledged to recruit 10,000 international nurses in England by April 2022 to help tackle the backlog.

This comes as part of a long-awaited elective recovery plan, published yesterday, which aims to eliminate year-long waits by March 2025 by delivering a ‘massive expansion’ in capacity for tests, checks and treatments, as well as trying to increase workforce numbers.

Speaking to the House of Commons yesterday, Mr Javid said an estimated 10 million people ‘stayed away from the NHS’ during the pandemic and even 50% returning would place ‘huge demand’.

But he promised international recruitment of more than 10,000 nurses this financial year – in particular those experienced in critical care and theatres – as part of the existing commitment of 50,000 more nurses by 2025, as well as 5,000 additional healthcare support workers.

The plan will also:

Clear two-year waits by July this year

Remove all waits of longer than 18 months by April next year

Return the number of people waiting more than 62 days from an urgent referral to pre-pandemic levels by March 2023.

NHS England (NHSE) also pledged to deliver around 30% more elective activity by 2024/25 compared to before the pandemic, after accounting for the impact of improved care through system transformation and new guidance.

Meanwhile, the NHS said it will offer patients around 17 million more diagnostic tests over the next three years, with more than 100 diagnostic centres expected to be rolled out. As many as 66 of the centres are set to be in use across England by the end of March.

It comes as part of a wider push to boost capacity to deliver more procedures and scans. To this end, NHSE will establish additional surgical hubs focusing on high-volume routine surgery to accompany the 122 currently operating in England.

‘Lack of workforce planning’

However, the announcement has drawn criticism for a lack of planning to address staffing crises across the NHS amid concerns about retention because of high pressures on staff.

Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting claimed the recovery scheme ‘doesn’t contain a workforce plan’ to help solve ‘the single biggest challenge facing the NHS’. He said that staff in the NHS are ‘overworked’ and suggested they staff could leave faster than the NHS is able to recruit.

And when asked by Lucy Allan, Conservative MP for Telford, his plans to tackle the staffing crisis, Mr Javid pointed to his previous request that the NHS put together a 10-year workforce strategy.

The report acknowledges ‘further work is needed to more systematically train, recruit and retain staff’, noting that delivering elective care recovery will require more new staff and more opportunities for existing staff.

However, it short of delivering this work, citing that the planned merger between Health Education England (HEE) – the body responsible for long-term workforce planning – and NHSE will see ‘a more co-ordinated approach’ to planning.

In addition, Pat Cullen, RCN general secretary, said: ‘Every response today – from health and care leaders and across the political divide – asks this government to get a grip of workforce planning. It is critical to the safety of patients.

‘The staffing crisis is heavily of their making and they must be accountable for fixing it. Too many of our members are considering their career choice this year and measures to keep them in post, including fairer pay, must be announced at speed.’

A version of this story was originally published on Nursing in Practice sister publication Management in Practice.

What’s Really Behind the Nursing Shortage? 1,500 Nurses Share Their Stories

Tue, 22 Feb 2022 21:33:13 GMT

If the past two years have taught the world anything, it's that nurses are NOT okay. The truth is that despite the 7 pm cheers, the commercials thanking nurses for their dedication and selflessness, and the free coffee from major retailers – the overwhelming majority of nurses are burnt out, underpaid, overworked, and under-appreciated.

With millions of nurses worldwide, Nurse.org wanted to truly understand the current state of nursing and give nurses a voice to share their thoughts, feelings, and apprehensions about the nursing profession. We surveyed nearly 1,500 nurses to find out how they felt about the past year and get to the real reasons behind the nursing shortage. The responses were heartbreaking, but not without hope.

What We Found: Nurses Are Struggling

Nurses are struggling. Regardless of practice specialty, age, or state of practice – the answers were all the same. Nurses, NPs, and APRNs are all struggling and need help.

Only 12% of the nurses surveyed are happy where they are and interestingly, 36% would like to stay in their current positions but changes would need to be made for that to happen. Nurses report wanting safe staffing, safer patient ratio assignments, and increased pay in order to stay in their current roles

Nurses didn’t hold back when discussing their feelings regarding the current state of nursing:

87% feel burnt out
84% are frustrated with administrators
84% feel they are underpaid
83% feel their mental health has suffered
77% feel unsupported at work
61% feel unappreciated
60% have felt uncomfortable having to work outside of their comfort zone in the past year
58% of nurses have felt frustrated with their patients
58% of nurses have felt unsafe at work in the past year

The numbers don’t lie. It’s astounding that a profession continually recognized for its compassion, strength, and resilience is suffering. And the suffering is universal.

One nurse responded with the following, “I have been an RN for 34 years and in my specialty of nursing for 31 years and I am burned out.”

What Is the Nursing Shortage and Why is it Happening?

You’ve likely heard about the nursing shortage, but what does that mean and why is it happening?

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the employment of registered nurses is projected to grow 9% from 2020 to 2030. Approximately 194,500 openings for registered nurses are projected each year, on average, over the decade. However, this number was projected prior to the pandemic, and before the mass exodus of bedside clinical nurses. As a result, it’s likely substantially lower than what the real demand for nurses will look like.

The American Nurses Association (ANA) reports that the increased need for nurses spans beyond the current pandemic. In fact, they sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on September 1, 2021, urging the country to declare the current and unsustainable nurse staffing shortage to be a national crisis.

The ANA attributes the needs for thousands of nurses to the following:

The Affordable Care Act made access to health care services possible for more people

Increased focus “primary care, prevention, wellness, and chronic disease management”

Aging baby-boomer population

Growing interest in community-based care

Why Are Nurses Really Leaving The Bedside?

However, those stats don’t address some of the systemic issues nurses face every day, particularly in the midst of a pandemic. That’s why we asked nurses why they are really leaving the bedside.

What we heard is that, overwhelmingly, the number one reason nurses want to leave the bedside is because of unsafe staffing ratios. This leads to a never-ending cycle of shortages: nurses face unsafe staffing ratios so they decide to leave the bedside, this results in even fewer nurses available to care for patients, so the downward cycle continues.

Essentially, nurses are dealing with an increased workload with fewer resources. Typically, pre-covid ICU nurses would experience a 1:1 or 2:1 patient-to-nurse ratio. Now ICU nurses throughout the country are experiencing a 3:1 or 4:1 patient-to-nurse ratio which exacerbates staff burnout and unsafe nursing practices.

One nurse reported, “With increased patient census, staffing ratios are very unsafe especially with high acuity patients. Having 4+ critically ill patients not only puts licenses at risk but the patients do not benefit at all. We’re just running around doing tasks, not providing adequate care.”

Unsafe Staffing Ratios Are Just Part of the Problem

While a big piece of the puzzle, unsafe staffing issues are, unfortunately, one part of a long list of issues plaguing nurses today.

Nurses are leaving the bedside because of issues like:

Inadequate staffing ratios
Not getting equal pay for equal experience
Not receiving hazard pay during a pandemic
Not having adequate back up
An inability to take breaks, sick days, or even turn down extra shifts

To learn more about the nursing shortage and learn ways you can get involved, check out the full report here .

Despite All This, Nurses Still Have Hope

70% of nurses still think that nursing is a great career and 64% still think that new nurses should join the profession.

“If you’re a student considering becoming a nurse, please know that you are not walking into a doomed profession. You will never meet anyone who is more determined, more resourceful, or more ready to jump in and lend a helping hand than a nurse." – Nurse Alice Benjamin, MSN, APRN, ACNS-BC, FNP-C, CCRN, CEN, CV-BC, Chief Nursing Officer and Correspondent at Nurse.org

If you’re a nurse, you know that nursing isn’t just a profession, it’s a calling. It’s devastating to see that so many nurses are suffering in their quest to heal and give care, but it’s heartening to know they are not without hope.

What Nurses Need Now

If you’re a nurse, know that your job is simply to put yourself first. If we want to solve the nursing shortage (and we do!), it can't happen without nurses recognizing that they are NOT the problem.

"The problem is not with nurses or nursing; the problem is that nurses have been so busy taking care of others that no one has taken care of them. And we’re here to change that--and by entering the nursing profession, you will be part of the solution too" – Nurse Alice Benjamin, MSN, APRN, ACNS-BC, FNP-C, CCRN, CEN, CV-BC, Chief Nursing Officer and Correspondent at Nurse.org

The truth is nurses need a lot more to be incentivized to stay practicing clinically at the bedside. Nurses reported needing:

Higher pay
Safe nurse-to-patient ratios
Hazard pay
REAL mental health resources
Adequate staff support
Support programs for new nurses

4 Ways to Support Nurses and Take Action

While we may not be able to make this change at an individual level, collectively, we can amplify the voice of nurses and shed some light on the issues that they are facing every day. Together, we have the power to create meaningful, lasting change for current and future nurses. Here's how to get involved:

Sign the Pledge

Sign the pledge seen below and encourage your friends & colleagues to do the same. While you’re at it, print it out and post it in your break room.

Spread the Word

Change can’t happen unless we get the word out about what’s really going on. Share what you’ve heard and what you’ve experienced, and encourage others to do the same.

Contact Your Elected Officials

It’s time for elected officials to stand up for nurses. Write them a letter. Call their office. Demand change for nurses. Click here to get the contact information for your local and state Officials.

Download and Share the Report

Get even more in-depth insights into what’s going on with the state of nursing and the issues that nurses face today, click here to download the full State of Nursing report or read about the best and worst specialties for nurses during COVID.

Rebuilding Your Nursing Team in 2022

Tue, 22 Feb 2022 21:19:59 GMT

The Covid-19 pandemic has been massively disruptive to nursing teams. Nationwide, leaders now struggle with picking up the pieces and rebuilding their teams. Even leaders who had cohesive teams in 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic find themselves in 2022 in a very different place. Some of the challenges that leaders have talked with me about include the following:

Many nurses were onboarded during the COVID pandemic and have failed to establish a strong connection with their organization, unit, and team.
Young new graduates entered high acuity care environments with few seasoned nurses to mentor them. As an outcome, some new nurses were never fully socialized into their professional roles.
Trust and psychological safety on teams waivered as environments became increasingly chaotic and the turnover of team members escalated.
As an outcome of nursing shortages, many agency and travel nurses supplemented core staffing and were never fully integrated into nursing teams.
The experience with COVID accelerated the number of seasoned nurse retirements impacting their teams in profound ways.
A significant number of nurses disengaged from work during COVID, impacting the effectiveness of shared governance and unit practice councils.
The wearing of PPE made it difficult to read facial expressions or sometimes recognize and talk with other staff members.
Socialization distancing rules during COVID restricted the use of break rooms and lounges, limiting informal team interaction.
Team rituals such as eating together, having baby showers, and socializing after work were lost. Without new rituals, teams struggle to build meaning in their work and lack the social glue that keeps teams together.

Health care has always been a team sport. Nurses are highly reliant on one another to deliver safe and quality care. Team backup is essential. The good news is that it is possible to rebuild teamwork, but not without intentional work. The dynamic changes that occurred during COVID with team composition made it hard for leaders to sustain the mental models that staff need to work together effectively. Tennenbaum and Salas,1 who research team effectiveness, discuss the following 4 essential attitudes and beliefs on teams that directly impact team functioning:

Trust—Do I expect my teammates do the right thing? Is there positive intent on this team, or are members focusing on their own needs?
Psychological Safety—Can I make mistakes and not be penalized? Can I share my beliefs and perspectives, even if different from other team members? Are bullying and incivility tolerated on the team?
Collective Efficacy—Do we believe that this team can move forward in the face of these challenges and get the work done?
Cohesion—To what extent are we committed to working as a team and providing backup to each other? Do we know each other? Do we have rituals in place that will help connect us?

Of these 4, trust and psychological safety on the team need to be high priority areas right now. We know from the work of Patrick Lencioni2 that the absence of either one leads to team dysfunction. Psychological safety creates an environment of respect where nurses feel they can bring their whole selves to work. Stephen Covey3 reminds us that trust is the glue of life and relationships. A lack of trust in a team slows every decision, every communication, and every relationship.

Many leadership resources exist to help leaders build trust and psychological safety, but some of the best assessment tools are free from Google. In 2011, researchers at Google initiated Project Aristotle and studied 180 teams at Google.4 They found that hiring the best software engineers did not always lead to the best team synergy or outcomes. Psychological safety and trust in teams mattered more.

Sometimes leaders hesitate to do these assessments feeling they either already know the problems or fear difficult feedback. But you need baseline data as a team to learn and grow. If you don't ask, you won't know what to start doing, stop doing, or continue doing. Coming together after falling apart is not easy, but it is important work today on many nursing teams. Without it, even the best recruitment and retention plans won't be successful.

References
Tannenbaum S.I.
Salas E.
Teams That Work: The Seven Drivers of Team Effectiveness.
Oxford University Press, New York, NY2020
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Lencioni P.
Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team.
Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA2013
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Covey S.M.R.
The Speed of Trust: Why Trust Is the Ultimate Determinate of Success or Failure in Your Relationships, Career, and Life.
Simon & Schuster, New York, NY2006
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re:Work. rework.withgoogle.com website.
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Date: 2011
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As Published on NurseLeader.com

Nursing and Healthcare Trends We Can Expect to See in 2022

Tue, 22 Feb 2022 21:14:41 GMT

Knowing upcoming healthcare trends can help guide your practice and decisions. Two nursing leaders share the top 10 trends they expect in 2022.

While dramatic changes were happening in healthcare before the pandemic, COVID-19 caused these changes to occur more quickly. These changes have helped address stresses placed on the healthcare system.

We spoke with two seasoned nursing leaders about the trends in healthcare expected in 2022. We discuss those trends and offer insight into how healthcare delivery is evolving.

10 Nursing Trends We Expect to See in the Coming Years

The last of the baby boomer generation will retire in 2030. This means changes in how healthcare is delivered will be necessary to meet more complex medical needs. Nursing leaders expect to see these ten trending patterns in the coming year. They will affect how nursing care is managed and delivered.

1. Job Growth for Nurses Will Continue to Rise

The world is in the middle of a critical nursing shortage. Many factors have contributed to the current situation:

Increased demand for care during the pandemic

Retiring nurse educators mean a falling number of nursing faculty

Nurse burnout from the pandemic

An aging population with complex medical needs

Nursing staff reaching retirement

Greater shortage in rural areas

Job growth is a function of supply and demand. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects the job growth for registered nurses (RNs) through 2030 to be 9%, as fast as average. They also estimate job growth for advanced practice nurses through 2030 to be 45%.

2. Home Health Will Increase in Popularity

Demand for home healthcare nurses will grow as the population ages. However, COVID-19 prompted an unexpected rise in need for these services. Home health benefits are a lifeline for vulnerable patients who are at increased risk of medical complications. This includes infectious illnesses like COVID-19.

In response, a new bill called the Choose Home Care Act was introduced to the Senate in July 2021 and to the U.S. House of Representatives in October 2021. If passed, it would expand the benefits provided by Medicare for home healthcare services. It would also open the door to more remote monitoring and telehealth nursing services for seniors. Seniors could choose to go home rather than a skilled nursing facility after hospitalization.

As home healthcare expands, experts are calling for greater standardization in the industry. They point out that license requirements are not uniform across states, making applications at the federal level next to impossible. Industry leaders are calling for standard onboarding and vetting procedures. It would include background checks, experience, certification, and social security verification.

3. Care Models Will Experience a Necessary Shift

Anne Dabrow Woods, chief nurse at Wolters Kluwer Health, anticipates a necessary shift in how nursing care models are applied due to COVID-19. For instance, the New York-Presbyterian Healthcare System carried out a vigorous model of nursing care during the pandemic.

There are two key components to how care is delivered:

The mode of delivery

The skills of nurses on the hospital unit

"Healthcare models must migrate from traditional nurse-to-patient staffing models to a more agile one in times of crisis, that facilitates flexibility and supports the best care for patients," Dabrow Woods explains.

While staffing must be based on patients' care level and staff competency, Dabrow Woods proposes an improved model during crisis management: team-based with an increase in floating nurses.

This system would allow hospitals to address hardships caused by future public health events or insufficient staffing, not unlike what we face now with COVID-19. Dabrow Woods stresses the need to be flexible. A care model should always support an organization and a nurse's ability to deliver excellent patient care.

4. Virtual Simulation and Technology Will Transform Nursing School

Advances in technology have improved online learning within nursing schools. This has been essential in addressing worldwide nursing shortages.

"Technology can eliminate traditional roadblocks such as a lack of physical training sites as well as potentially staffing challenges with flexible solutions for faculty," Dabrow Woods explains.

Covid-19 affected nursing program changes that will impact 2022. Colleges and universities moved to online classes to help reduce the spread of infectious diseases. Similarly, the National League for Nursing worked with Laerdal Medical and Wolters Kluwer Health to develop vSim.

vSim is a virtual simulation program to help prepare nurses for practice. The program uses guided questions and interactive scenarios. Dabrow Woods believes this program can also help nursing students prepare for the National Council Licensure Examination and improve clinical judgment. The program is designed to help students practice nursing skills like clinical decision-making while exposing them to a diverse patient population and practice setting.

5. Healthcare Staff Well-being Will Be a Top Priority

Earl Dalton is the chief nursing officer at Health Carousel, a workforce management solution company. He believes the mental health of nurses and healthcare staff is a top priority and trend in 2022.

"The pandemic has acted as a wake-up call for health systems and providers to center nurse well-being in our practice and leadership," Dalton says.

Factors that contribute to the nursing shortage include stress, traumatic experiences, and burnout. Organizations employing nurses must place the mental and physical well-being of its staff as a top priority.

Solutions may differ depending on the team and organization.

"We have a great opportunity right now to truly address healthcare tensions and enhance well-being for those who have committed their lives to serving others," Dalton says.

Through fostering a healthy work environment, organizations can ensure that staff is operating at their best. This can result in positive patient outcomes and helps enable the organization to fulfill its mission to care for others.

6. Resilience Is Key to Retaining the Nursing Workforce

Cultivating resilience and supporting nurses' mental health is an important strategy to help combat nurse burnout and protect patient safety. Resilience is the ability to face adversity while remaining focused and optimistic for the future. This is a vital characteristic for nurses who must function in a complex healthcare system under stressful situations.

Many experts have been promoting resilience to prevent burnout during the pandemic. However, it was a strategy promoted long before 2020. Nurses are especially prone to stress-related illnesses and burnout. Recovering and recuperating quickly helps reduce the risk of negative consequences.

"We knew there was a nursing shortage and that many nurses were already feeling stressed and overworked," Dabrow Woods says. "COVID-19 has only brought this problem to the forefront."

Nurses are exhausted, morally injured, and burnt out, with many considering leaving the profession earlier than they normally would, Dabrow Woods explains.

Dabrow Woods stresses how healthcare organizations must make efforts to foster resilience. A significant trend in 2022 will be to focus on restoring a safe work environment. Another focus will be developing staffing models based on patients' care level and workforce competencies, she says.

7. The Nurse Shortage Will Lead to Several Unwanted Side Effects

The global nursing shortage has had a significant impact on patient care and an adverse impact on healthcare systems. The nursing shortage began well before the pandemic. But the stress on the system with COVID-19 raised the level of burnout and increased the number of nurses who left the profession early.

Dalton predicts this shortage could lead to a bidding war and price escalation for contingent nurse staff. During 2020, there has been a rise in the demand for travel nursing. Hospitals are raising temporary staff salaries and benefits to fill staffing needs.

"Qualified resources and strong relationships will be crucial for meeting hospitals' needs at this time," Dalton says.

It will be essential for hospitals and staffing companies to work together to provide the best contingent staff.

8. Short-term Solutions to the Nurse Shortage May Impact Patient Care

Dalton predicts that short-term solutions to the post-pandemic nursing shortage will have an impact on patient care. He calls this the experience-complexity gap. Essentially it means that, due to the shortage, hospitals and organizations will have to rely on unskilled or inexperienced labor to help meet patients' needs.

For example, there will be a greater number of new graduate nurses as baby boomers reach retirement age. An older patient population means a greater number of individuals with complex conditions.

"These counter forces of limited experience and increased complexity require hospitals to remain deeply in tune with their staff makeup," Dalton says.

Hospitals must then ensure that each new nurse is taught efficiently. Hospitals must also work to staff nurses with greater experience across each unit.

Dalton warns that it will require improved training and better leadership models to bridge this gap so it does not affect patient care or negatively impact staff well-being.

9. Training and Higher Education Increase in Demand

Healthcare professionals are experts in the care they provide. As organizations struggle through the nursing shortage, it is essential not to neglect staff training and education.

Dalton stresses that the appropriate training for each role remains non-negotiable when considering nurse placements. It is only through training and education of permanent employees, short-term nursing positions, and travel nurses that staff can stay up to date on skills. This helps increase the best care possible.

The American Association of Colleges of Nursing promotes the preference for nurses who hold a bachelor of science in nursing (BSN). About 82% of employers express a strong preference for these nurses.

Dalton says setting a high bar for education, skills, and motivation may help "dictate better patient outcomes, ensuring we in healthcare can spend each day improving lives."

10. Online Education Programs Will Increase in Popularity

Experts are predicting that online nursing programs and RN-to-BSN nursing bridge programs will increase in popularity. During the pandemic, nursing colleges used online classes to help reduce the spread of COVID-19. However, expect the trend in online classes to continue past the pandemic.

COVID-19 has changed how education is delivered; research suggests that online learning may increase the retention of information. Data show it can take less time to learn and may lower overhead for colleges and universities. Even before COVID-19, the U.S. had invested billions in educational technology, including virtual tutoring, videoconferencing, and online learning software.

This investment has paid dividends in 2020 and will likely continue to offer opportunities for students in the years to come.

RAMA WALKER, MBA, BSN, RN NAMED CHIEF NURSING OFFICER AND CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER AT NURSEIFY, INC.

benjamin.foster@imc-culture.com (Benjamin Foster) — Mon, 07 Feb 2022 19:28:54 GMT

Nurseify, Inc. is pleased to announce the appointment of Rama Walker, MBA, BSN, RN as chief nursing officer and chief operating officer (CNO & COO) for the nurse staffing agency. Walker most recently served as the Administrator for two freestanding emergency rooms for HA Houston Healthcare Southeast. She led facility operations performing over 38,000 patient visits combined per year. Prior to that, Walker served as Program Director for Healogics and had direct oversight of the Wound Care and Hyperbarics program. There she led the team to the first Center of Distinction Award in 2017, an award recognizing outstanding clinical performance. Walker has also held dinical leadership roles at HA Houston Healthcare West and other healthcare organizations in the Houston market. RAMA WALKER MBA, BSN RN "Rama brings a wealth of clinical expertise and leadership experience to Nurseify and I know our dients will appreciate her high energy and commitment to high quality standards," said Benjamin Foster, CEO of Nurseify. "

Giving back to nurses.

sitebuilder@imcadagency.com (Web Team) — Wed, 17 Mar 2021 14:10:27 GMT

Giving back to nurses.

Nurses and their families get Unlimited from $30/line with 4 lines on Start Unlimited. Plus taxes & fees. With Auto Pay. Personal lines only. Plus, get the stunning iPhone SE on us with Unlimited.

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Louisiana hospital staff stayed behind to care for 19 babies as Hurricane Laura hit

Sun, 06 Sep 2020 08:05:53 GMT

(CNN)- Even as Hurricane Laura bore down on a hospital in Lake Charles, Louisiana, someone had to watch the babies.

Winds howled, water leaked through windows and the generators kicked on at Lake Charles Memorial Hospital. Despite it all, the NICU staff kept all 19 of its babies safe through the Category 4 storm.

"It's important to know the dedication of all the nurses and the respiratory therapists to keep taking care of the babies when they don't even know the condition of their homes," Dr. Juan Bossano told CNN on Thursday. "In a small town like this, people have to pull together. I'm proud of them."

The residents of Lake Charles knew the hurricane was headed for their city, with mandatory evacuation order in place. The city got some of the worst of the storm, with an hour of 120-135 mph wind gusts as the eyewall crossed, according to the National Weather Service.

Bossano and a team of 14 nurses, 2 neonatal nurse practitioners and 3 respiratory therapists hunkered down in the NICU all night, he said. Two teams took shifts caring for the little angels, the staff trying to get some sleep when they could.

The staff had their hands full, said Bossano, who has been a neonatologist for more than 30 years.

Some of the babies were on respirators and ventilators, some as small as one or two pounds, Bossano said. Some of them were born premature at just 23 weeks.

There was no air conditioning and in the middle of the night, the water went out in the hospital.

Alesha Alford, vice president and administrator for Lake Charles Memorial Hospital for Women, noticed how well the staff came together in the uncertain situation.

"It was scary for everyone," Alford said. "When the winds got so bad, we had to move our patients into the hallways. Staff were sleeping in the hallways with patients.

During the rough night, Bossano posted an update about the babies on his Facebook page knowing it was the easiest way to calm the fears of many of the parents who were worried about their little ones.

The babies were doing "better than all of us," he wrote.

The tiny patients had already had a wild ride before the hurricane blew through, Bossano said. Earlier that day, the threat of flooding forced the NICU to evacuate from Lake Charles Memorial Hospital for Women to the main hospital.

"In two hours' time, we transferred 19 NICU babies from that facility to our main campus," said Matt Felder, director of communications for Lake Charles Memorial Health system.

"They did it in record time, 19 babies across the city in under two hours," he said. They had to do it before conditions became too dangerous.

Ambulances transported the babies to the bigger hospital -- one with 10 floors instead of the women's hospital that only houses patients on one floor, Alford said.

Doctors, residents, the sheriff's department and others helped transport the precious cargo and all of the equipment and supplies the staff needed to keep the babies safe. Respirators, incubators and all sorts of items were taken to Lake Charles Memorial Hospital.

"We had 19 NICU babies with four on ventilators, some of them very sick, and we were out in 2 hours," Alford said. "I have never seen something work so quick and so smooth for something that was unexpected."

Now the babies are in for one more ambulance ride. The main hospital did not have water service as of Thursday evening, Felder said. Laura knocked out most of the water service in Lake Charles, City Administrator John Cardone told CNN.

With only two NICUs in Lake Charles, the babies will be transferred to other hospitals in the state, Felder said.

"This morning because the babies were stable, I got a couple of hours of sleep -- we are still in the hospital," Bossano said in between coordinating the 19 transfers.

When calling the NICU on Thursday, a chorus of cheering erupted. A staff member told CNN that staff was celebrating because the first patient was being transferred to another hospital.

"It's a bright spot in this horrific tragedy our community is facing," Felder said.

Free Tools to Support the Mental Health and Resilience of All Nurses

Fri, 14 Aug 2020 19:33:38 GMT

Our commitment is to support you as you support your patients through the coronavirus pandemic. Every day, across the nation, you and millions of nurses experience extraordinary stress and other impacts to your mental health and well-being as the pandemic continues.

The American Nurses Foundation launched—in partnership with four leading nurse organizations—the Well-Being Initiative to offer a suite of free tools and resources specifically designed to support your mental health and well-being during this time.

Nurses Together: Connecting Through ConversationsNew Paragraph

There is huge value in talking with people undergoing similar experiences during times of crisis. Please join us for facilitated, nurse-to-nurse video calls that provide a safe space to talk openly about self-care and wellness, recovery and resilience, care dilemmas, bereavement, and more. See the schedule and register for upcoming conversations here .

Moodfit Mobile App

For all of us, reminders to practice self-care during times of stress are so important - especially now, when work and life stresses are intensified by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Moodfit app supports your overall wellness by allowing you to set personal goals related to exercise, nutrition, sleep, mindfulness, track your progress, and set-up convenient activity reminders .

To access Moodfit, download the app at https://www.getmoodfit.com/anf

Happy App

As a nurse, you know that empathy, listening and connection make all the difference. You need the same support you give patients—especially now. For nurses who want to talk with a supportive person, the Happy app provides free 24/7, one-on-one conversations with Support Giver team members from the comfort and privacy of your home. You talk and they listen - with open ears and zero judgment. Download the app here or visit the website to learn more. First calls for all nurses are complimentary (made possible by the American Nurses Foundation).

Narrative Expressive Writing

Help process your experiences related to COVID-19 with this five-week guided Narrative Expressive Writing program. Participants are invited to respond anonymously to weekly prompts that are reviewed and responded to by trained professionals. Sign up to participate here .

Mental Health Support Services

Looking for help and not sure where to start? Use this Nurses’ Guide to Mental Health Support Services to better understand what support systems and services are available to you and how to locate them. From peer support options to easy and anonymous ways to find a mental health provider, this guide breaks down what you need to know and do to locate the mental health support that is right for you. You are not alone!

The following offer free and discounted mental health treatment to nurses:

Coronavirus Online Therapy

Therapists offering short-term, pro-bono or low fee online sessions to “front line” or “essential” workers (someone who does not have the privilege to work from home, or “shelter in place”).

Give an Hour

Give an Hour’s Hospital Heroes Program provides six hours of free, confidential, mental health support to all hospital-based essential employees in the states of NY, NJ, and CT as well as their loved ones.

Talkspace Online Counseling

Discounted online therapy in the form of text, audio and video calls with a licensed therapist. Download the Talkspace app from the App Store or Google Play and register with your NPI and/or work badge. Once verified for eligibility, you will be provided 50% off your first month of any plan.

Nursing organizations step up to address racism and its consequences

Fri, 14 Aug 2020 19:33:34 GMT

Racism and its effects on the health and well-being of the American people has now elicited a direct response from nursing organizations.

Ernest Grant, PhD, RN, FAAN , president of the American Nurses Association, was appalled when he watched the video of a police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, which ultimately led to Floyd’s death, a citizen the officer was sworn to protect.

Grant knew the tragedy demanded a response from the nation’s largest nursing organization.

“In my statement to our membership, I explained that we have a code of ethics that obligates nurses to be allies and speak up against racism and social injustice,” Grant said. “Whenever we see racism, we must call it out, even if it is occurring among colleagues. To remain silent is just as problematic as promoting racism.”

Numerous nursing organizations have responded to Floyd’s death by issuing statements, offering virtual discussions to increase awareness about racism and supporting peaceful protests.

As protests have erupted across the nation amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the ANA educated the public about the importance of wearing masks and practicing social distancing during the events.

“We are using the public’s trust of nurses to let people know that we care about their health and their concerns about social injustice,” Grant said.

Mawata Kamara, RN (right), with members of National Nurses United at a rally.

The Black Lives Matter movement

A recent survey from Civiqs showed support for the Black Lives Matter movement has increased significantly as a result of the George Floyd incident, and now a narrow majority (51%) of American voters are in favor of the cause.

While some have reacted to the movement by responding that “All Lives Matter,” Grant said the phrase seems to be exclusive of black lives. “Until people understand the turmoil Black people have experienced, All Lives Matter misses the mark,” he said.

Grant experienced racism personally when he said he was overlooked for job promotions despite the fact that he was qualified or more qualified than other candidates, and when patients did not want him as a nurse because he was Black.

The racism Floyd endured is also reminiscent of an incident in the life of ED nurse Mawata Kamara, RN, a member of National Nurses United, which issued a statement in June. In 2008, Kamara was arrested and booked in jail in Hayward, Calif., because police said she did not pull over when they asked her to stop.

“I had stopped, and they gave me no explanation about why I’d been pulled over,” said Kamara, who had been on her way home from the night shift in the ED at San Leandro Hospital. “They asked me to get on my knees outside the car and put on handcuffs, and I was shaking throughout the ordeal,” Kamara said.

She was released nine hours later with the explanation that the officers had checked her record and she was clear.

Experiences of racism like this have led Black people to distrust not only police, but also healthcare providers, Kamara said.

In the ED, she has treated Black patients who appeared non-compliant, but the source of this behavior may be distrust. She recently cared for a Black patient who was rejecting medication suggested by a physician. Kamara asked the woman why she did not want to take the medication.

“She said that when people don’t have insurance, doctors do not care and want to get rid of the patient as quickly as possible,” said Kamara, who explained that she did not care how the patient paid and was there to take care of her.

Research also suggests racism affects decisions made by providers. According to a recent study highlighted in the New England Journal of Medicine, white patients typically had better access to specialized care compared to other racial groups at Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s Department of Medicine in Boston.

Access to healthcare, healthy food, safe drinking water and other social determinants of health also can be more limited for people of color, and nurse leaders hope the recent protests will lead to changes in communities.

“We have known for a long time that racism affects health, and the George Floyd situation and the higher incidence of COVID-19 in minority communities have brought this issue to the world’s attention,” said Jean Ross, BSN, RN, president of National Nurses United.

JetBlue to give free flights to 100,000 healthcare workers

Thu, 23 Apr 2020 14:56:38 GMT

Local hospitals battle against nurse shortages during COVID-19 pandemic

JetBlue said on Wednesday that it plans to give 100,000 free pairs of flights to healthcare workers under a new "JetBlue Healthcare Hero" program.

The airline said it will issue two round trip flight certificates to 100,000 healthcare workers around the US, as frontline medical workers continue to be overwhelmed treating patients with COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus.

The first 10,000 recipients will be in New York, the airline said in a press release, where the outbreak has raged since mid-March. Providers at the Mount Sinai Health System and New York City's public hospital system, NYC Health + Hospitals, will be eligible for those 10,000 tickets, although providers at other health systems in the region are eligible for the remaining tickets.

Any healthcare worker is eligible, the airline said in the release, "from doctors and nurses, to pharmacists, therapists, social workers, public health administrators and more."

To apply, active healthcare workers, public health officials, or first responders must be nominated at jetblue.com/healthcarehero. Nominations are open through May 15. The certificates will be valid from July 1, 2020 through July 1, 2021.

The airline will give its 23,000 employees additional certificates "to gift to the healthcare heroes in their life." The airline said it would plan a low-altitude flight over New York on Thursday at 7 p.m. to honor healthcare workers.

Airlines including JetBlue have seen customer traffic and revenue plummet throughout the coronavirus pandemic, as stay-at-home orders and social distancing guidelines make travel impractical or impossible. Airlines have been continuing to fly mostly empty planes in order to maintain supply chains and connectivity. The planned flight path can be seen below.

According to Airlines for America, a trade and lobbying organization representing the major US airlines, domestic flights are carrying an average of 23 passengers each, down from 85-100 in the first two months of the year.

Fauci: US needs to 'significantly ramp up' testing

Thu, 23 Apr 2020 14:56:38 GMT

Anthony Fauci, the administration's top infectious diseases expert, said Thursday that the United States needs to "significantly ramp up" its testing capacity in order to effectively contain the coronavirus as blunt measures like stay-at-home orders are eased.

"I agree you don't need to test everybody, but you should at least be able to test the people in which you have to test to be able to do containment, and right now I think there's still some gaps there," Fauci said in an interview with Time magazine. "I mean, on paper it might look OK, but we absolutely need to significantly ramp up not only the number of tests, but the capacity to actually perform them."

He noted there are problems with securing supplies needed to conduct the tests as well, such as swabs and chemicals.

"I am not overly confident right now at all that we have what it takes to do that," he said of having robust enough testing. "We're doing better and I think we're going to get there, but we're not there yet."

The comments are a warning about the need for more action to increase testing as President Trump expresses his eagerness for the economy to begin to reopen. Trump has said that it is the states' responsibility, not his, to increase testing, though he has offered help in some areas.

The United States is currently doing about one million tests per week, a figure that has been relatively flat for some time, according to the Covid Tracking Project.

Fauci echoed other experts when he said the country needs to be doing "closer to 3" million tests per week.

He said if social distancing measures are going to be eased to a large extent, "you may need multiple times that as you get into the late spring and early summer."

"For goodness sakes, when we get into the fall, after all of those months, we better have multiple times that," he added.

Full Story: https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/494366-fauci-us-needs-to-significantly-ramp-up-testing

How The Virus Might Worsen California’s Nurse Shortage

Fri, 27 Mar 2020 14:56:38 GMT

How The Virus Might Worsen California’s Nurse Shortage

San Diego State University’s nursing program, along with others across California, have pulled their students from clinical experiences in hospitals amid the coronavirus pandemic.

While the decision greatly reduces the risk that nursing students will contract and spread COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, it creates a new set of problems.

The students may not have the clinical hours they need to graduate, which would further exacerbate California’s ongoing nursing shortage. A 2017 report by the American College of Medical Quality estimated that by 2030 the state will have a shortage of more than 140,000 registered nurses.

At this point, the only way nursing students set to graduate this year will make it into the workforce would be if the state lowered the number of hours it requires them to spend on direct patient care. The most realistic way to make that happen would be an executive order by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Nursing student organizations and the California State University system have written letters to the governor asking for his help, and students have signed a petition. So far, Newsom hasn't responded, and his spokesman didn't respond to a request for comment for this story.

Caught up in all of this is Sarah Faucheux, a third year nursing student at SDSU. She had been spending two days a week in the hospital, fulfilling her clinical hours, until the coronavirus struck..

"I myself was actually potentially exposed to one of the patients being tested for coronavirus," Faucheux said.

She and another nursing student had to be isolated at home until the patient’s results, which turned out to be negative, came back. But by then hospitals and SDSU decided nursing students should no longer be in hospitals.

This left Faucheux with mixed emotions.

"I wish I could be helping on the front lines right now and I sort of feel guilty that I can't," she said. "Because I feel like that's part of signing up for the job, you're taking care of sick patients and infectious patients, so there's a risk to yourself as well."

The problem is that nursing students can't treat patients on their own, but they still need personal protective equipment and other resources that are in scarce supply right now, said Dr. Phillip Greiner, the nursing director at SDSU.

"In healthcare, nurses are the people who run in and take care of patients, some people might say we should have students doing the same thing," he said. "But remember students are here for education, not exposure. As they graduate, they might put themselves in harm's way, but we can't do that as part of their education."

Greiner said it was the right call to remove students from hospitals. But he does worry about creating a backlog of nursing students who can't graduate.

"Not just this year but in years behind them, they would not be able to progress," he said. "These students need to graduate, enter the workforce, be full [registered nurses] at a time when we need them most."

In some states, including Virginia, governors have made executive orders waiving the hands-on requirements.

Others, including Wisconsin and New Jersey, are going so far as to ask nursing students to start working in hospitals amid staffing shortages.

Greiner said allowing nursing students to temporarily work as registered nurses violates schools' accreditation rules.

Faucheux, the nursing student, said she worries that if clinical requirements were lifted, she wouldn't have the full training experience. But, she thinks lab simulations would be enough.

"Even though I can't talk to patients and interact with patients, I can still work on my critical thinking skills and my clinical decision making skills through these simulations," she said.

Plus, she'd still have next year to do more direct patient care hours — assuming the virus subsides. Still, it's hard for her to be stuck at home instead of working in her chosen field.

"In a perfect world, if more was known about this virus and if more personal protective equipment was available, I feel like this would be a really great learning experience for nursing students," she said. "But I feel like the decision to have us not being clinical is better for the greatest number of people and in terms of minimizing the spread."