Nursing Shortage

Issues Surrounding the Nursing Shortage

In the early 2000s, national strategies to improve the nursing workforce profile were largely focused on increasing the number of nurses at the bedside through the use of sign-on bonuses and travel nurses. While these strategies tended to provide local short-term solutions, they did little to address long-term issues affecting the nursing shortage. With nursing education programs challenged to increase student enrollment, many colleges were confronted with a limited financial infrastructure, a shortage of qualified faculty, and difficulty establishing the clinical sites needed to support additional students. Thus, they found themselves turning qualified applicants away (Clark & Allison-Jones, 2011).

According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN, 2010) there are three routes to becoming a registered nurse (RN), a 3-year diploma program typically administered in hospitals, a 3-year associate degree usually offered at community colleges, and the 4-year baccalaureate degree offered...
[ View Full Essay]