There are just too few nurses.
“The United States is in the midst of a nursing shortage that is expected to intensify as baby boomers age and the need for health care grows,” said the American Association of Colleges of Nursing in a recent statement.
The issue was discussed at the July 9 meeting of the Utah State Board of Regents at their offices at the Gateway.
A panel was invited to discuss the implications of the nursing shortage and what can be done.
In Utah, there are currently 1,000 more nursing jobs open in hospitals than there are nurses to fill them. The Utah Health Care Association reports a 24 percent vacancy in long-term care facilities.
In addition to the current shortage, several new health care facilities will open in the next five years, creating another 375 nursing positions.
Utah’s colleges and universities have many applicants to their nursing programs, but the current nursing faculty is insufficient to allow these students to enroll.
During 2001-2002 academic year in the Utah System of Higher Education, there were 1,357 applicants and 571 graduates.
And the situation will get worse.
One-third of the 250 faculty members plans to retire in the next five years.
The Utah Nursing Leadership Initiative has been looking for ways to quickly expand the number of nurses.
A $6.6 million initiative organized by the Utah Nursing Leadership Forum hopes to increase the nursing class size from 1,006 to 1,537. The proposed increase would nearly double the number of graduates each year.
The proposal would require no new facilities, but would simply increase the number of nursing faculty.
“It isn’t a matter of having to make a case that we need nurses,” said Kim Wirthlin, U assistant vice president for health sciences. “It’s that the budget is so lean, we’ll have to come up with some creative funding mechanisms to get the $6.6 million.”
Another possible source of filing nursing vacancies is the approximate 4,300 licensed nurses that aren’t practicing.
The Utah Medical Education Council is conducting research to discover why these nurses aren’t practicing.