Friday 5 June 2015

The Rising Demand for Registered Nurses

On the global front there is a major shortage of registered nurses owing to many reasons. The most prominent one being baby boomers age that further intensifies the need for health care workers. This blog shares the four top reasons for growing demand of RNs.

Rising Demand for Registered Nurses

Here are the top 4 reasons that shows the demand for RNs is growing:

Aging Population

    With the baby boomer generation reaching old age resulting in increased need for clinically skilled nurses for their care and assistance. This is also resulting in an imbalanced ratio of younger generation to senior citizens.This is one of the major reason resulting in rising demand for RNs. 

Retirement Age 

    As per the projection by Health Resources and Services Administration more than one million registered nurses are reaching retirement age in the coming 10 to 15 years. Additionally, many nurses will be leaving the workforce owing to many reasons like burnout, workload, and stress further widening the nursing shortage gap.

Hospital acuity 

    Due to technological advancements, the whole medical process has been streamlined allowing quick assessment, treatment and discharge. This has also resulted in acuity in hospitals, and hospitals are functioning more like intensive care units including all intense treatments such as cardiac monitoring, respiratory assistance and to carry out these functions effectively, registered and clinically skilled nurses are required. This has become another reason creating demand for skilled and specialized nurses.

BSN has become entry requirement

    As per the survey by American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), there is 2.1 percent fall in BSN enrollment program in the year 2000 and this has happened sixth year in a row. This shows less nurses are enrolling in baccalaureate program whereas seeing the complex- patient care and to deliver best care to patients, hospitals are more inclined towards hiring nurses with minimum BSN degree. This again furthers the demand for skilled and registered nurses. 

An aging workforce, baby boom bubble, lesser number of new students enrolling to nursing, stress on specialized health care services all these factors have resulted in rising demand for registered nurses in the profession.