Prolonging the Careers of OR Nurses as Strategy To Ease Nursing Shortage

Writing for Nurse.com, Scott Williams writes about searches for ways to lessen the burdens and lengthen the careers of perioperative and other nurses as one strategy for minimizing the impact of the nursing shortage. He quotes Patricia C. Seifert, RN, MSN, CNOR, CRNFA, education coordinator for the cardiovascular OR at Inova Heart and Vascular Institute in Falls Church, Va., as saying "We can’t afford to have anyone retire. . . . But at the same time, you can’t work people to death.”

Seifert, who has prepared a paper for the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN) 55th Congress, suggests that hospitals that want to keep older perioperative nurses on the job need to look at ways to make their jobs physically easier and less intrusive on their personal lives, such as by finding ways for them to draw on their knowledge and experience, rather than their physical abilities. Even physical demands can be attenuated by, for example, reducing the amount of time a nurse is forced to stand or by reducing the weight of surgical instruments.

Williams also reports on other initiatives. One, a 2006 report--"Wisdom at Work: The Importance of the Older and Experienced Nurse in the Workplace"--sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which advocated flexible hours, increased benefits, newly created professional roles, better-designed hospital equipment and buildings, and an atmosphere of respect for nurses as all things that could help retain nurses longer. Another is a one-day conference titled “Coming of Age: Innovations to Support the Aging Nurse”, that was spearheaded by Ed Coakley, RN, MSN, MA, MEd, director emeritus at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, which resulted from a study in which older nurses said they hoped to work “until their backs gave out or their knees gave out or as long as they were able to physically work,” Coakley says.

Source: Nurse.com "Bright Ideas for Retaining Aging OR Nurses" (January 30, 2008)

Additional Resources: Hodes Research "The 2006
Aging Nursing Workforce Survey"; Talent Matters "Workforce Planning for Health Care" (January/February 2008)

Survey: Nursing Management Reports on Aging Workforce and Nursing Shortage

According to Medical News Today, the July issue of Nursing Management features an exclusive "Aging Workforce Survey" of nearly 1,000 nurses that demonstrates the lack of comprehensive strategies designed to retain aging nurses. The complete Survey along with retention recommendations can be purchased online.

Among other things, the survey reports that more than 55% of the (mostly) managers who responded to the survey will retire between 2011 and 2020, combined with a rising exodus of nurse employees during the same time and that the operating room and postoperative anesthesia care unit have the oldest employees and are therefore at the highest risk for a staffing crisis.

Source: Medical News Today "Nursing Management's Aging Workforce Survey Finds Lack Of Retention Strategies May Escalate Nursing Shortage" (August 31, 2006)

Nursing Faculty Shortages Partly Attributable to Aging Workforce

The National League of Nursing has issued "Nurse Educators 2006: A Report of the Faculty Census Survey of RN and Graduate Programs" with research showing that the aging of the faculty population is one of three cirtical factors in the growing nurse faculty vacancies.

Nursing programs in the study "indicated that almost two thirds of all full-time nurse faculty members were 45 to 60 years old and likely to retire in the next five to 15 years. A mean of 1.4 full-time faculty left their positions in 2006; nearly one quarter of these were due to retirement."

Source: PrWeb Press Release (July 23, 2006)

Illinois Governor's Budget Proposal To Respond to Aging Nursing Workforce

In his operating budget plan for Fiscal Year 2007, Illinois Governor Rod R. Blagojevich included a series of proposals to to address the shortage of nurses-–expected to grow to 21,000 by 2020 in Illinois--spurred by an aging workforce and increased demand for nurses as baby boomers grow older. Among other things, Governor Blagojevich proposes to:

• Develop the Center for Nursing to develope a strategic plan for nursing manpower in Illinois, maintaining a database on nursing supply and demand, and creating nursing retention and recruitment initiatives;
• offer nursing educator scholarships;<;i>offer grants to nursing schools to help increase the number of faculty;
• make changes to existing nursing scholarship program to allow consideration of merit;
• create student loan repayment program for nurse educators.

The budget message follows up on an earlier announcement by the Governor of his plan of heading off the an anticipated severe shortage of nurses resulting from an aging nursing workforce.

Source: Press Relase Illinois Government (February 15, 2006)