Quick Statistics on the Nursing Shortage

• There are 126,000 nursing positions currently unfilled in hospitals across the country. –American Hospital Association
  
   
• Fifty-six percent of hospitals report they are using agency or traveling nurses - at great expense - to fill vacancies. –American Hospital Association

• On average, nurses work an extra eight-and-a-half weeks of overtime per year. –Service Employees International Union (SEIU)

• It is estimated that by 2020, there will be at least 400,000 fewer nurses available to provide care than will be needed. –Journal of the American Medical Association

• Ninety percent of long term care organizations lack sufficient nurse staffing to provide even the most basic of care. –Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

• There are roughly 21,000 fewer nursing students today than in 1995. –American Association of Colleges of Nursing

• One study found that in 1999, five percent of female college freshman and less than .05 percent of men identified nursing as being among their top career choices. –Nursing Economics

• Nursing schools turned away 5,000 qualified baccalaureate program applicants in 2001 because of faculty shortages. –Modern Healthcare

• In Georgia alone, a quarter of the state's nursing school faculty will retire or resign over the next four years. –The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

• The average age of a working registered nurse, 43.3-years-old, is increasing at a rate of more than twice that of all other workforces in this country –Journal of the American Medical Association

• Organizations that are better able to retain their nurses fare better on quality measures.  Low turnover hospitals – at rates under 12 percent – had low risk-adjusted mortality scores as well as the low severity-adjusted lengths-of-stay compared to hospitals with turnover rates that exceeded 22 percent. –Keith C. Kosel, Tom Olivo, "The Business Case for Workforce Stability"

• Staffing levels have been factor in 24 percent of the 1,609 sentinel events reported to the Joint Commission over the past five years.  –Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations

Taken From