Preparing for Michigan’s Nursing Shortage

Our country is currently facing a massive nurse shortage, and the problem is affecting us at a local level as well. Michigan is currently expecting a shortage of 7,000 registered nurses by 2010 and an even larger shortage of 18,000 RNs come 2015.

This problem isn’t due to a lack of interest in the nursing field. It is due to a lack of classroom faculty, clinical faculty and clinical sites for aspiring nurses to get their education. More than 4,400 qualified nursing school applicants have been turned away in the last year in Michigan due to these shortages. According to the Department of Labor and Economic Growth, 50% of the current nursing faculty will be eligible to retire in the next few years, making the lack of clinical nursing faculty even more of a concern.

Although funding for nurses is partly provided through scholarship programs, they are no longer sufficient towards ensuring the state has enough nurses to adequately care for patients. To fully address this shortage last year, Governor Granholm created the Michigan Nursing Corps Program, an initiative that awards grants to universities and colleges with existing accredited nursing education programs for the purpose of increasing the capacity of nursing faculty and adding new nurses to the workforce.

With the difficult fiscal situation the state faced last year, only $1.5 million was allotted for the program. However, with a less dire budget situation this year, my colleagues and I recently fought for and secured an increase of $3.5 million for the Nursing Corp Program, bringing its funding up to $5 million for 2009.

Investing our money towards training future nurses will bolster faculty and support increased enrollment, two aspects necessary to keeping up with the growing need for health care workers. A fully trained nurse staff is necessary under any situation, but especially as the baby boomer generation continues to age and the increase in demand in the medical sector continues to rise.

With more than 2,000 RN job openings in Metro Detroit alone, this is clearly a problem that deserves the legislature’s full focus. We know what we have to do to address the nursing shortage-educate more nurses to become teachers so that we can in turn have more nurses working in our hospitals, clinics, and medical offices. Focusing on these issues today will help create better health care experiences for workers and patients both now and in the future.