Throughout the 20th century, there were cyclical periods
identified as nursing shortages. Some of the quick fixes that
were used to alleviate the various shortages included: changes in
work hours, financial bonuses for employment, increased wages,
scholarships and grants to support education, attracting "second
careerists" into the profession, foreign nurse recruitment,
increased utilization of unlicensed assistive personnel, pay
differentials and incentives for different shift work and
specialty nursing, changes in practice modalities, and more
attention to the contributions of the nursing staff by the
facilities and employers. However, the burdens associated with
the work environment, and the overall structure of the health
care system in our nation, were never adequately addressed.
In April 2002, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation released its
report Health Care's Human Crises: the American Nursing
Shortage. The report unequivocally states that the current
nursing shortage will extend will into the 21st century and is
driven by a broader and different set of factors than the
shortages that were experienced in the last century. Among these
factors are:
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The lack of racial and ethnic diversity in
the nursing workforce |
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Due to the opportunities created by the
women's rights movement, women have chosen other professions
or work over nursing and not enough men have entered the
profession to compensate for this change |
Not surprisingly, then, the broadening of diversity among
health care workers by including underutilized personnel sources
is among the recommendations of the American Hospital Association
(AHA) for solving the crisis of the nursing shortage (AHA
Commission on Workforce for Hospitals and Health Systems,
entitled In Our Hands: How Hospital Leaders Can build a
Thriving Workforce). The Commission identified five keys to
solving its workforce shortages and has charged its membership
with implementing them. One of these five keys is to broaden the
base of its workers by:
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Aggressively developing a more diverse
workforce pool |
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Creating attraction strategies for each
generational cohort |
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Pursuing people from the full range of
potential nurses |
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Communicating a positive, satisfying, and
inspiring image of health care careers |
In addition, the National Advisory Council on Nursing
Education and Practice warns that if nursing, which represents
the largest healthcare profession, is to successfully address the
unique needs of this country's growing minority populations, it
is vital that they attract more men and minority groups. As such,
numerous groups have taken steps to increase diversity of all
kinds in the nursing workforce.
Among these groups is "Nurses for a Healthier Tomorrow," a
coalition of 37 nursing and healthcare organizations working
together to launch an extensive communications and advertising
campaign, which they describe as a grassroots effort aimed at
increasing the attractiveness of nursing as a profession. Their
print advertisements and public service announcements present an
image of nursing as a career for everyone, inclusive of all
minorities, including men, in which professionalism, teamwork,
and leadership are key.
Congress is also working to provide a solution. The
Recruitment and Diversity in Nursing Act, introduced in 2003,
would provide for scholarships to be endowed to "nontraditional
nursing students" (i.e., minority, socially disadvantaged, or
male nursing students) in exchange for these students' agreements
to work for at least two years in health care facilities with a
critical shortage of nurses.
Increasing the diversity of any group of people has been shown
to have positive effects on its culture, once barriers to
diversity are identified and eliminated. There is every reason to
believe this to be true for the culture of nursing as well.
Hopefully, the nursing shortage will also be eliminated in the
process.
This article was adapted from:
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