Only 1.89 million full-time RNs were employed in the United States in 2000-that's 6% fewer than the 2 million needed, according to the National Center for Health Workforce Analysis, based on data from the National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses. 1 This 6% shortfall occurred primarily in 30 states, yet the same government agency estimates that by the year 2020, 44 states and the District of Columbia will feel the effects of the nursing shortage. 1 The most dire predictions are of a deficit of as many as 1.5 million nurses by that year. 2
Like forecasters interrupting television programming to warn of impending storms, national organizations, philanthropic foundations, labor and economics specialists, and the federal government have issued reports on the shortage of health care workers in recent years. Many focus on the nursing shortage; each predicts imminent workforce shortages. But the reports differ in style and substance and in strategies for averting the worsening of the shortage in the next two decades.
These variations result in part from the special interests of the organizations-the stakeholders-that commissioned them. Although they all provide useful perspectives from which to better understand the scope of the shortage, each was created for various constituencies in diverse practice settings and thus may not convey a broad or comprehensive perspective. For example, it's clear upon analysis that the authors of the General Accounting Office report didn't intend to identify comprehensive problems and solutions; rather, they describe demographic trends, which can be used by others as a basis for their own analyses. 3
No neutral body has examined these reports collectively and then synthesized the content to determine broader strategies and recommendations.
OBJECTIVES
We sought to conduct such an analysis. We considered our research group to be neutral because we adhered to an appropriate methodology for conducting such a review without bias or regard for any one report. Our goals were to objectively examine some of the reports that focused primarily on the nursing shortage, to analyze and categorize the data they contained, and to offer to the federal government, national organizations, institutions, and nurses a number of recommendations upon which a comprehensive national strategy to avert the nursing shortage could be based.
We addressed the following questions:
* What types of data were used to substantiate the health care workforce crisis?
* Were the same data used in different reports?
* What descriptive themes expressed the scope and intensity of the workforce problem (that is, those factors that contribute to the shortage)?
* To what extent did the solutions address the problems?
In this article, we describe (1) how we analyzed the reports; (2) the problems and solutions identified in the reports; (3) the extent to which the solutions addressed the problems; and (4) our recommendations for forestalling the nursing shortage.
METHODS
We initially reviewed some 35 reports, but only 15 met our criteria and were included in our review. Some had been issued as formal documents (such as special reports to a constituency), others as journal articles, and still others as reports from consultants; many had been released both in print and online (see The Reports Studied, page 70). They were created for various constituencies in diverse practice settings.
We conducted an integrative review, which is a research method that allows the researcher to understand and interpret text-derived data and to critically review the quantitative findings present in reports. We analyzed and coded the content of each report by theme and cross compared themes from each report to generate new knowledge about the workforce problem and the solutions recommended. To add strength to the analysis, we used principles derived from metasynthesis, an evolving set of research techniques used to generalize findings from qualitative studies. 4,5 Our intention was to examine the data used in the reports and analyze the text for problem and solution "themes." In our analysis, these problems and solutions were not necessarily required to be in the same report. A "gap" was noted if no corresponding problem or solution theme could be identified in at least five of the reports. (See More on Methods, above.)
RESULTS
Our results are organized around the research questions.
What types of data were used to substantiate the health care workforce crisis?
Because of multiple stakeholders' reliance on data to educate their constituents on the workforce problem, we analyzed the primary sources of the data, which included coding the data by type and reviewing the consistency of data findings across reports. (A wide variation in data type or inconsistent data citations might lead to concerns about the legitimacy of the problem.) Quantitative data in the reports we examined were used by the authors to substantiate the shortage. Twelve of the 15 reports relied on at least one of the following three types of data to substantiate the escalating shortage:
* demographic data, which were used to specify projected population shifts, thus depicting the demand for additional health care workers
* current and projected "supply data," which described how many RNs were available and how many would be needed in the future
* data on nurses' satisfaction with their own work environments
While data on satisfaction with various aspects of nursing work (such as conditions, wages, and benefits) were present in six reports, all three of these data types were included in the reports from professional associations and foundations, and some reports included original research. However, most relied on a single data type. One government report presented considerable workforce data (median age of the workforce, for example) and data from the U.S. Census Bureau but didn't include information on the imbalance in supply and demand. 6 In another case, a labor report focused solely on the work environment, detailing nurses' perceptions of their workplace and examining their environmental conditions. 7
The abundance of work environment and nurse satisfaction data in the reports surprised us, since we expected more emphasis on supply and demand. We surmise that the authors assumed that stakeholders had knowledge of supply-and-demand data because of its wide acceptance. The reports focusing on the work environment most often cited specific nursing concerns, such as nurses' willingness to remain in the profession, or their concerns about patient-nurse ratios.
Were the same data used in different reports?
The reports derived most of their data from three primary sources, which we found to be credible, valid, and reliable:
* data from various federal agencies (used in 11 of the 15 reports)
* several studies by Peter Buerhaus and colleagues (two of the reports were based entirely on their research, and their work was cited in five other reports)
* several studies generated by Linda Aiken's research team (cited extensively in three reports, particularly in regard to patient clinical outcomes associated with staffing)
Once cited in a report, a source tended to be relied on throughout.
Frequently, the same statistics were used in many of the reports, particularly in regard to the supply of nurses and the demographics of the nursing workforce. This information was usually obtained from one of the primary sources noted above, so it's not surprising that the data cited in these reports were similar (although there were slight variations, depending on when the reports were published). For example, in five reports, the average age of working nurses ranged from 43.3 to 46 years; the projected average age of nurses working in 2010 was 50 years in one report and age 50 or older in two others. In some cases, though, the data cited in the reports were identical: three different reports cited a study in which 55% of respondents said a less stressful job was the number-one reason nurses would leave the workforce. 7
One notable exception involved the projected scope of the shortage. The reports we studied predicted a shortfall ranging from 400,000 to 1.5 million nurses by 2020.
What descriptive themes expressed the scope and intensity of the workforce problem?
To identify common themes associated with the workforce problem, we coded the text of each report and began to cluster this information under labels derived in the research analysis (see Descriptive Themes and Subthemes of the Workforce Shortage, page 71). To be included as a "primary theme," text related to the theme had to be noted in at least five of the 15 reports; to be classified a "subtheme," text related to the theme had to appear in at least three of the five reports. For example, at least five reports described health care economics as a factor in the workforce problem, and at least three of these reports were more specific and discussed "cost of labor" as part of health care economics, making it a subtheme.
By restricting the findings to major themes and subthemes, isolated problem statements present in fewer than five reports-which may have validity but could also represent a stakeholder's bias-were eliminated. Through the clustering of themes, a "big picture" view of the most critical issues and substantive solution recommendations could be determined.
We made one exception: "technology" was termed a primary theme, even though it was identified as a potential solution to the nursing shortage in only three reports. State-of-the-art technology has the potential to bring about large-scale efficiency gains in health care-for example, by eliminating paperwork and by decreasing the fatigue associated with repeated clinical tasks, such as physiologic monitoring. In fact, the Institute of Medicine believes that technology is more likely than any other innovation to transform the industry because of its potential to reduce medical errors and decrease the amount of time clinicians spend on nonclinical tasks. 8
In Descriptive Themes and Subthemes of the Workforce Shortage, page 71, we describe the themes we identified, provide information on their prevalence in the reports, and label the themes as either "national" or "institutional" in scope. Our results show that the health care workforce shortage is more complex than a simple imbalance in supply and demand. The following statements from two of the reports illustrate how text supports the themes, such as those found under the health care economics theme:
* "Many employment policies favor retirement and discourage creativity in retaining older workers. Government and employer-based retirement policies need to change to encourage older workers to remain in the workforce."9
* "Reductions in reimbursement resulted in a shift from inpatient to outpatient care [horizontal ellipsis] in response to the reduction of patient revenue, many hospitals closed inpatient units and changed their staffing mix by substituting RNs with licensed practical nurses and nurse's aides. The downsizing of inpatient units in response to Medicare and managed care reimbursement cuts has had the dual effect of reducing the total nursing population and discouraging new students from entering the field."2
The following statements were included under the leadership theme:
* "Clearly, effective leadership is the cornerstone of any successful work force strategy. For this reason, health care organizations must find ways to enhance managers' skills and demonstrate their commitment to their employees."10
* "[horizontal ellipsis] nurse executives, by the nature of their positions, must, almost on a daily basis, meet the often conflicting objectives of both administrative and clinical staffs, and reconcile these conflicts in the best interests of both nurses and patients."11
To what extent did the solutions address the problems?
After noting the problems in these reports, we grouped the proposed solutions by theme, employing the same coding procedures as above. Most of the reports were not designed as solutions but rather described or clarified the scope of the shortage. But four reports-those issued by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (authored by Kimball and O'Neil), the American Hospital Association, and the American Organization of Nurse Executives-identified problems and offered corresponding solution strategies. "Nursing's Agenda for the Future" differed from the others in that it consisted of a series of visioning exercises that enabled the authors to identify a variety of ways to improve the shortage. These improvements were categorized into 10 domains, such as "Public Relations-Communications." The report also identified which stakeholders could work toward improving each domain.
We analyzed whether proposed solutions adequately addressed the identified problems. If an identified problem had no potential solution, or if a suggested solution didn't appear to address any of the stated problems, we determined there was a "gap" between the problem and solution and surmised that additional strategies were needed. Gap Analysis of Workforce Problem-Solution Themes, on page 73, lists the problem and solution themes and shows any gaps between the two. Our findings, which we termed a "gap analysis," identified three problems that had no suggested solutions and two solutions that did not address any of the problems presented in the reports.
Problems without solutions.
Although we discovered that demand was identified as a problem in several reports, none of the solution themes we identified addressed population and demographic trends, including the aging of the population. Moreover, under the economic problem theme, we found no solution themes that addressed the high cost of nursing labor relative to the number of nurses working as part of the total health care workforce, or nurses' perceptions of their salaries as inadequate or compressed. Further, no solution theme addressed the need for economic policies that could ensure fair reimbursement of nursing services across the health care continuum or other related policies with economic implications, such as access to care.
Sufficient solutions to ensure an adequate workforce were also lacking. Based on the text that described this problem theme, we could infer that strategies should promote intraorganizational planning (for example, coordinating efforts between local hospitals and schools of nursing to ensure supply and demand). In another instance, we inferred that regulatory and professional associations could collaborate at the regional or national levels-on intense recruitment efforts, for example-to optimize resources to solve the shortage problems. It's likely that health policy changes will be needed to help support these solutions, although the authors of these reports did not make recommendations regarding either the type of changes needed or who would make these changes.
Another problem theme was workforce development, such as the nursing educator's ability to ensure that basic and advanced nursing education enables nurses to meet patients' care needs in a variety of settings, including public health. The pace and intensity of nursing work are described in the reports and indicate that a problem exists in keeping staff abreast of clinical and organizational changes. Therefore, the need for continuing education becomes part of the workforce problem. As stated above, the reports imply that solutions are needed to reconcile the tension between education and practice realities, and that nurses must embrace lifelong learning. The reports also highlight the need for preparing and expanding the public health workforce to address emerging issues, such as bioterrorism, which could dramatically affect the public's health.
Solutions without problems.
Conversely, there were solution themes that emerged in five or more reports during the analysis that were not directly tied to any problem theme. Those most frequently cited relate to the significance of data as a measure of determining, first, whether the workforce problem is improving or not and, second, whether improvement can be measured in the remedies that are being implemented. For instance, researchers would need to gather data at the institutional level to determine whether nurses were satisfied with a new staffing model or a new technology introduced to alleviate manual work. In addition, such data would be needed to measure the effectiveness of a demonstration project that introduced an innovative care model aimed at improving patient and staff satisfaction. Similarly, regional or national data are needed if researchers wish to survey the effects of regional or national nurse recruitment efforts or study the overall supply-and-demand balance. Although there was no explicit statement regarding the absence of sufficient data as part of the workforce problem, these examples implicitly suggest that there are inadequate data to examine supply and demand, new programs, and patient and staff satisfaction.
Technologic solutions were envisioned in which the nurse's workload is streamlined to enhance productivity and decrease the time spent charting, yet these solutions didn't address any of the problem themes stated in the reports. Three reports offered technologic solutions that would shift nursing work away from certain tasks.
It should be noted that we found no gaps between the problems and solutions categorized under the themes of supply, work environment, leadership, and workforce development. But none of the solution themes we identified addressed patient safety and medical errors, issues that have received much public attention and have been linked to nurse staffing ratios. 12
A CALL TO ACTION
The reports we studied provide various perspectives on the scope of the nursing shortage. To a lesser degree, they also offer strategies for averting a national public health crisis. Yet the complexity of the shortage makes it difficult for any one entity to explain it fully.
All of the reports we examined acknowledged the shortage, but the specificity of the recommendations for resolving it varied greatly. For example, four of the 15 reports-issued or authored by the American Hospital Association, the Joint Commission, Kimball and O'Neil, and the American Organization of Nurse Executives-provided specific action plans. Three others-from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, Gelinas and Bohlen, and Needleman and colleagues-implied but didn't categorically suggest strategies. "Nursing's Agenda for the Future" and reports from Joseph and Melick, Hart (2001), the Service Employees Union, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services contained broad recommendations or suggestions that didn't specify who should implement the changes. The remaining documents contained opinions or views that were not written with the aim of specifying potential solutions to workforce problems. Thus, despite the need, a comprehensive and coordinated national strategy designed to forestall the nursing shortage has yet to be created.
Our research provides a broader perspective from which to understand the workforce problem. The gap analysis clearly shows a lack of comprehensive solutions to the problems. We also discovered that the scope of the problem is still being defined, as evidenced by the fact that some strategies for action do not correspond with the described problems.
We believe that a comprehensive workforce plan can be built upon our gap analysis and should include
* clear problem statements (related to each theme noted in Descriptive Themes and Subthemes of the Workforce Shortage, page 71).
* agreement over desired outcomes (based on the seven imperatives described below).
* focused, tiered strategies (on the national, institutional, and individual [nurse] levels) to achieve these goals.
Obviously, such a plan must include identification of the resources, both human and financial, needed to keep the crisis from getting worse. From our analysis, we've determined that a comprehensive workforce plan should require a multilevel approach that fosters national, institutional, and nurse-specific efforts.
NATIONAL IMPERATIVES
Although the nursing shortage currently varies by region-and it will continue to-it's a national problem that merits a collaborative solution by the federal government; national trade, professional, and regulatory associations; philanthropic organizations; and private-sector industries. We found three national-level imperatives emanating from the 15 reports.
* Economic imperative; sample strategies:
[black vertical rectangle] Develop public policies favoring fair reimbursement for basic and advanced nursing services.
[black vertical rectangle] Consider allocating a portion of federal health care reimbursement dollars to workforce planning and development.
* Workforce planning and development imperative; sample strategies:
[black vertical rectangle] Continue public- and private-sector recruitment efforts to expand the health care workforce.
[black vertical rectangle] Promote advanced nursing education that keeps pace with market demands.
* Research and data imperative; sample strategies:
[black vertical rectangle] Identify and fund federal and nonfederal agencies to collect workforce data.
[black vertical rectangle] Create a clearinghouse to make national and regional workforce data accessible to various stakeholders.
INSTITUTIONAL IMPERATIVES
Not all activities are suited to the national level. Roles for local and regional entities in addressing the shortage are clearly supported by the reports we examined. The reports' major recommendations or solutions were relevant to institutional involvement focused on the work environment-concerns about working conditions, patient safety, the use of technology, and innovations in patient care. Also noted was the need for effective and responsive leadership. Data from the reports point toward two institution-level imperatives.
* Work climate imperative; sample strategies:
[black vertical rectangle] Ensure satisfactory basic salaries and safe working conditions.
[black vertical rectangle] Integrate technology to help nurses work more efficiently and improve patient safety.
* Leadership and innovations imperative; sample strategies:
[black vertical rectangle] Create academic and service partnerships to reform provider education and utilization.
[black vertical rectangle] Establish leadership development opportunities with an emphasis on innovation and change management.
INDIVIDUAL NURSING IMPERATIVES
Practicing nurses must also commit to influencing change and ensuring effective clinical outcomes. With this in mind, we include two final imperatives.
* Involvement imperative; sample strategies:
[black vertical rectangle] Commit personal time to and seek a voice in organizational and professional decision making.
[black vertical rectangle] Actively support colleagues who participate in workforce initiatives.
* Adaptive imperative; sample strategies:
[black vertical rectangle] Reflect on personal attitudes toward change.
[black vertical rectangle] Recognize that the profession of nursing will continue to change.
It can be difficult in the midst of change for all of us, as nurses, to focus clearly on our responsibilities. Yet our involvement with policymakers, other providers, and consumers will be essential in transforming the health care system. Most important, we have always served as advocates to ensure the health and welfare of the people we serve. Our vigilance is critical now.
CONCLUSION
The purpose of our research was to examine these 15 reports, with the end result being synthesized information that can be used to direct action strategies. Out of this work, our gap analysis was developed, which provides new knowledge and a platform from which a comprehensive action plan can be derived. The imperatives, carved from the collective recommendations within the reports, frame the organizing structure around which sound strategies can be determined devised by groups and individuals. We now challenge key stakeholders to use these findings as the starting point for transformational change.
TABLETABLETABLE
REFERENCES