The Future of the Nursing Workforce in the United States: Data, Trends and Implications

I had to get this book for a course I took to earn my Masters in Nursing Administration. Actually reading it though was not as bad as I thought. It broke each concept down well and kept my interest. It is certainly an important topic and it raises some good questions. I would recommend it for any nursing program, under grad and post grad.

I just finished this very interesting book "The Future of the Nursing Workforce in the U.S." Buerhaus, Staiger and Auerbach, copyright 2009. The authors make the point that the reason the nursing shortage to date has not been as severe is because of 2 factors: the increase in immigrant nurse graduates and the tail end of the baby boomers who entered nursing school in their 30s and 40s - this 2nd group was large enough because the entire cohort of the boomers was in general so large. The prediction now is that for sure in 2015 there will be another nursing shortage of 300-500,000 nurses nationwide. They note that the cohort of students planning or entering nursing school now, particularly those seeking ADN education, are from the 1970s or Gen X group and they are doing so at higher rates than predicted. Since that cohort was not as large as the boomer cohort in sheer numbers, however, it still will not alleviate the looming shortage. There are some ideas at the end about how best to address this problem and I really appreciated the focus on abandoning ratios and allowing the nurses who give the care to patients to decide how much time is needed to be effective. That way this will be a career choice that is much more Attractive. I was disappointed in their assessment (limited) of how universal coverage will affect the profession.