OUR CAREGIVERS
OUR NEXT GREAT CHALLENGE: A SHORTAGE OF NURSES Health care chief executive officers across the nation have identified a shortage of nursing professionals as the industry’s greatest challenge. University Hospitals has an extraordinary nursing community, but our health system is impacted similarly to other organizations by the demand for nurses and the limited number of applicants for crucial caregiver roles. The COVID-19 pandemic and its stress on frontline caregivers accelerated the shortage of nurses we knew to be coming. Many complex causes beyond the pandemic have contributed to the situation today. First among these causes is that the number of nursing school graduates is not keeping up with retirements. Many want to become nurses, but schools turn away thousands of applicants for lack of in-class and clinical capacity. Another issue is declining retention among nurses who work in hospital settings. Some have left nursing at hospitals to move into ambulatory centers and practices that often offer a less stressful environment. Others changed fields entirely or retired as thousands of nurses have aged out of the workforce. Some nurses who are flexible have joined travel nursing agencies, which pay a high hourly rate to fill an increasing number of urgently needed, temporary positions at hospitals. UH is also in competition with hospitals in Florida, California and other destination locations that are willing to pay attractive relocation packages. It is especially concerning that first-year nurses are leaving their positions in record numbers. Coming into the field during the pandemic, their experience has not been what they expected.
26.6% Median industry turnover of RNs
with less than one year of experience in 2021, up from 24.6% in 2020 Source: The Advisory Board
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University Hospitals • 2021 Annual Report
