response one: Nursing shortage is a very big problem in my area, I lived in New Jersey in ocean county and work in a skilled nursing facility. That county has approximately 38 skilled nursing facilities and that’s one of the biggest problems we have, I am aware that the hospitals in these areas are short. The nurses shortage that arises mostly in my field is in managerial position, the facilities need registered nurses in these positions, that is hard to do, when the nurses leave school they preferred to work for the hospitals. There are several reasons for this shortage, (1) Faculty shortages at nursing schools across the country are limiting student capacity at a time when the need for professional registered nurses continues to grow. Budget constraints, an aging faculty, and increasing job competition from clinical sites have contributed to this crisis. (American Association of Colleges of Nursing. Nursing shortage fact sheet). (2) Nurses’ stress levels are increasing because of insufficient staffing, which, in turn, is reducing job satisfaction, causing more nurses to leave the profession (Trends in Health Care:A Nursing Perspective).

The American Association of Colleges of Nurses (AACN) is working with schools, policy makers and nursing organizations, they are trying to identify strategies and form partnership to address the shortage. One solution I would suggest is open more nursing programs, make it easier to get in and finished, get more hands on training during school. In my area this a difficult task, people are always failing out or getting delayed because they have to repeat classes. This situation is going to be very difficult to solve because its been happening for so long.

References

Trends in Health Care: A Nursing Perspective. Retrieved from,

https://lc.gcumedia.com/nrs440vn/trends-in-health-care-a-nursing-perspective/v1.1/#/chapter/1

American Association of Colleges of Nursing. Nursing shortage fact sheet. Retrieved from.

https://www.aacnnursing.org/News-Information/Fact-Sheets/Nursing-Faculty-Shortage

Response two: “One solution I would suggest is open more nursing programs, make it easier to get in and finished, get more hands on training during school”

Yvonne, while your statement in theory, sounds as though it would help solve the nursing shortage, I am not sure it is as easy as that. In my area, there are multiple BSN programs at 4 year institutions, plus 3 ADN programs. The problem with opening more schools is there aren’t enough qualified instructors, nor enough available clinical sites. If I am not mistaken (at least in Wisconsin) in order to teach RN students you need to have at least a master’s degree, I am not sure about LPN students.

As we learned from this week’s readings, there is a shortage of nursing faculty. I was doing some research and came across the Nurse Faculty Loan Program (NFLP). This is a “federal program designed to increase the number of nursing students who pursue careers as full-time faculty teaching in schools of nursing. Full-time or part-time graduate students who plan careers as nurse faculty are eligible to apply and may be eligible for up to five (5) years of financial support. (All support is contingent upon ongoing federal funding and therefore subject to change.) Up to 85 percent of the total loan amount will be forgiven if the graduate works full time for four (4) years in a nurse faculty position immediately following graduation. Faculty positions may be in any state and at any accredited program (ADN, BSN, MSN, DNP, or PhD)” (Nurse Faculty Loan Program, n.d.). I had no idea this program existed and is a great incentive for those interested in pursuing nursing education.

I live in the Madison, WI area. Madison College, in Madison has an associate degree program. There are also 2 “regional” affiliates of Madison College in the outlying eastern communities. One of the regional schools used to have just an ADN program, and the other an LPN program. With the phasing out of LPN programs, the college decided to better utilize its resources and be able to enroll more ADN students. One of the regional schools does the 1st year of the program, and the other does the 2nd year, and every semester (fall and spring) a new cohort starts. All students have the option of sitting for their LPN after the 1st year and continuing on, or completing their schooling at that time. Existing LPN’s in the community are allowed to enroll in the 2nd year only for the LPN to ADN completion program (they basically join another co-hort–which generally has room due to people dropping out or failing a class). I think our instructors had been pretty pleased with the success of the program and it has significantly decreased the wait list for getting into the program.

It will definitely be interesting to see the state of nursing in a few years, and how health care institutions are dealing with the lack of qualified nurses.

Reference:

Nurse Faculty Loan Program. (n.d.). Retrieved from University of Wisconsin-Madison: https://students.nursing.wisc.edu/graduate-advisin…