With hundreds of area nursing school graduates unable to get a job and a major Institutes of Medicine initiative suggesting that part of the nation’s future need for primary care services can be met by better leveraging nurses, a casual reader of the headlines might conclude that efforts over the past decade to address the nursing shortage have been successful. Indeed, even the Florida Center for Nursing reports that present supply and demand of nurses is close to equilibrium.
However, the truth is that the storm has yet to pass. Masked by economic conditions that have some nurses working increased hours at a rate that is not sustainable, and others delaying retirement until housing and investment account values recover, the underlying conditions that produced a nine percent or better vacancy rate remain and continue to worsen as both the nursing workforce and the nation’s baby boomers continue to age. This reality is true across the country, but it should especially concern us here in South Florida.
Healthcare is the region’s third largest source of jobs. Only tourism and the public sector hire greater numbers of South Floridians. It is also important to note that the average wage earned by those working in healthcare is nearly double that of workers in the other two sectors. So, the vitality of the healthcare field should be a priority for the community at large. Regional leaders that rightly advocate for infrastructure improvements including beach restoration and port tunnel projects would be wise to consider what is needed to ensure that South Florida also continues to grow as a healthcare destination.
Baby boomers, will increasingly shop for healthcare services online, comparing hospitals across the country using government published clinical outcome and patient satisfaction measures. High marks for area hospitals will ensure that growing numbers of savvy healthcare consumers from throughout the hemisphere continue to seek services in our region; providing the financial resources for ongoing investments and continuous improvement.
With numerous academic studies documenting the correlation between great nursing and great clinical outcomes, there should be little doubt of the importance of a healthy nurse workforce pipeline to the region’s economic health (as well as its physical and mental health.) Yet significant crimps and leaks along the continuum remain unaddressed. During the coming decade the region will loose many of its most experienced nurses and a majority of its leaders to retirement. Other highly skilled nurses will surely move to primary care settings further draining the capabilities of the nursing workforce at the hospital bedside. This reality has led the Nursing Consortium of South Florida to develop a regional leadership academy to leverage best practices and national standards to facilitate the development of the next generation of nurse leaders. The new grads readily available today will be desperately needed in two years. How to retain and develop that key labor pool is yet another challenge that needs to be addressed. Only 25% of Florida’s RNs are younger than 40 years old and according to the Florida Center for Nursing the average age of RNs in the state as of January 2010 was 48.6.
Even in these challenging times, area leaders have successfully argued the merits of deepening the Port of Miami to ensure our place as a hemispheric trade hub. Attention to the workforce challenges faced by the region’s third largest economic driver will similarly ensure our future as a hemispheric healthcare hub.
