The shortage of nursing staff has been a growing nationwide issue affecting small clinics and large hospitals alike from east to west coasts and every where in between. With a slow-growing nursing population working in a field that continues to rapidly expand the implications of the nursing shortage are becoming a stark reality.

Wisconsin isn’t exempt from this problem, according to the State of Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development in their Wisconsin Health Care Workforce Annual Report 2007 the issues facing the nation on the subject of nursing shortages are the same as those Wisconsin itself is facing:

“By 2014, Wisconsin’s health care occupations are expected to grow with 38,000 new jobs. Topping the list of occupations with the most openings, either new jobs or vacancies, is that of registered nurse. In the decade ending 2014, Wisconsin will need 26,110 more registered nurses.”

On a nationwide level, a shortage of nursing school faculty is restricting program enrollments. According to the 2008-2009 Enrollment and Graduations in Baccalaureate and Graduate Programs in Nursing, a study conducted by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, U.S. nursing schools turned away nearly 50,000 qualified applicants due to a shortage in staffing and resources necessary to accommodate them.

Another issue facing the health care industry in Wisconsin is although program enrollees in the UW system are up by 56 percent since 2001 that does not mean these graduates will fill the vacancies in Wisconsin’s health care system. Per the State of Wisconsin's 2007 report the study notes, “More people move from state to state; they change careers, some out of necessity, due to injuries.”

A study by the Bureau of Health Professions in 2004 approximated the deficit of nurses is likely to increase from a 6 percent shortage in 2000 to a projected 36 percent shortage in 2020. This means that individuals going through the UW system now and entering the field of nursing will find their skills are in high demand nationwide and it would be foolish to assume all graduates would stay in Wisconsin.

The underlying issues of the nursing shortage are many and the looming retirement age of baby boomers is one of many. According to The Future of the Nursing Workforce in the United States: Data, Trends and Implications (Buerhaus, Staiger, Auerbach) the average age of an RN is expected to be 44.5 years by 2012 with nurses in their 50s becoming the largest segment of the workforce at almost 25 percent of the nursing population and estimate by 2020 there will be an approximate shortage of 340,000 nurses. Aging and retirement of the nursing population is yet another issue facing Wisconsin and the United States.

What does this mean for healthcare specifically? As the patient to nurse ratio increases another figure comes into play; patient mortality. Stuart Anderson reports in his article, Deadly Consequences: The Hidden Impact of America’s Nursing Shortage, when a nurse’s workload is increased from 3 patients to 8 patients the mortality rate also increases by 31 percent. Plainly speaking, the more patients a nurse has to care for the less time and attention they have to spend with each one which ultimately results in a delay in “prompt intervention when patients’ conditions deteriorate.”

Simply requiring a lower ratio does not address the problem and there are several steps that can be taken to address the shortage our state and country is facing. Anderson makes several suggestions, the first being an increase of nursing faculty and school infrastructure. Americans are interested in careers as nurses but many schools have waiting lists that span years while others, as previously noted, turn away qualified applicants.

The other suggestion he makes is the increase of immigration quotas to aid in the entry of internationally-educated nurses. Since the nursing shortage literally translates into life or death situations for patients such steps may be necessary to ensure the availability of quality health care to those who need it.

Despite the problems it is clear that the field of nursing offers abundant job opportunities to those interested in entering the field. In Wisconsin, a state that has seen a reduction in industrial and manufacturing jobs, those who desire to stay in the state will find a career in nursing offers local employment opportunities and job security that will be virtually untouched by current and future economic conditions.