This paper examines the growing staffing crisis in the United States nursing profession, drawing on projections from the Bureau of Health Professions and the Government Accounting Office to document widening gaps between nurse supply and demand. The paper identifies key contributing factors — including an aging nurse population, declining entry rates among younger candidates, and widespread job dissatisfaction — and proposes a mixed-methods research study to investigate how structured mentoring relationships could address these issues. Characteristics of effective nurse mentors are reviewed, and the paper argues that a well-designed mentoring approach could increase program enrollment, improve retention, and raise job satisfaction among nursing professionals.
Within the United States, nursing represents the largest healthcare profession. With 2.7 million nurses currently fulfilling roles within the profession, there remains a widespread need for new nurses to enter the career — both to replace the aging nurse population and to prepare for the increased level of medical need expected in the future. If left unaddressed, this discrepancy between supply and demand will eventually result in a massive shortage of nurses and will seriously impact the quality of the US healthcare system. At the same time, a large number of citizens are reaching an age when they will likely be in increasing need of health care services. A continued shortage of qualified nursing professionals would therefore be devastating to the overall quality of healthcare in the United States.
According to information provided by the Bureau of Health Professions (BHP) within the US Department of Health and Human Services (2002), a shortage of registered nurses — previously projected to begin around 2007 — was already underway at the time of reporting. As documented by BHP, the national supply of registered nurses was estimated at 1.9 million while demand was estimated at 2 million, a shortage of 100,000, or 6 percent. Demand for nurses was expected to grow relatively slowly until 2010, at which point it was projected to exceed supply by an additional 12 percent.
Trends identified by BHP further suggest that demand began to exceed supply at an accelerating rate. By 2015, the shortage — a relatively modest 6 percent in the year 2000 — was projected to quadruple to 20 percent. By 2020, if the problem remained unresolved, the shortage was projected to reach 29 percent.
The US Government Accountability Office (2001) reported similar concerns regarding the aging of the nursing population. As noted in that report, multiple factors influence the recruitment and retention of nurses, one of which is the reduced entry of younger people into the profession. Job dissatisfaction has also been identified as a significant contributing factor. On the basis of a survey sponsored by the Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals (2001), one-half of currently employed registered nurses surveyed had considered leaving the patient-care field for reasons other than retirement.
Overall, the nursing shortage reflects a number of significant forces, including changing demographics, decreasing resources, and increased demands on the healthcare system. A declining social value placed on nursing as a career, along with expanded career opportunities for those who might otherwise have considered nursing, has further reduced the number of candidates entering the field. While workforce shortages occur cyclically in other professions, the nursing shortage appears to be more severe and complex. If left unchecked, this trend poses a significant threat to the overall health and well-being of the nation.
In order to investigate this trend and develop a hypothesis for reversing the shortage, this paper proposes an examination of how a structured mentoring approach to nurse recruitment could:
"Characteristics of effective nurse mentors"
"Mixed-methods design for nursing mentoring study"
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