The Next Chapter of Care: Building a Resilient and Specialized Nursing Workforce for Tomorrow's Elders

In our time today where more people are getting older, the demand for our nursing professionals has significantly increased. Especially when most senior nurses and specialty nurses are also affected by this aging world and are retiring. The nursing shortage that has affected the healthcare system worldwide added to this arising problem. Recent statistics show that there are about 4.3 million registered nurses (RN’s) in the United States. With the median age of 52 among these nurses, more than 20% are planning to retire within five years, thus adding to the problem of nurse shortage in our country.

With the lifestyle that we have today, more people acquire multiple health issues compared to the past years, which also requires ongoing management, specialized knowledge and coordinated care from our healthcare professionals. Studies show that by the year 2030, all baby boomers will be 65 years old or older and with this said, most of them, if not all, will need more care from our healthcare professionals. Being said, our healthcare facilities are already understaffed, and more patients are being admitted, most nurses nowadays are burnt-out because of mandated overtime to comply with the needs of patients. Nurse burnout has been the leading issue among our nurses today, being ranked above retention, vacancies, and mandated overtime. These problems cause our nurses to have poor patient communication, thus making the patient’s experience less enjoyable. Also, these problems cause more mistakes by our nurses while doing their job and can possibly lead to turnovers that cost our facilities tens of thousands of dollars each nurse, making it difficult to avoid.

Facilities nowadays need to have more and better training for their nurses to cope with the rising needs of our aging population and have more capable specialty nurses to provide them their specific care needs. Facilities also need to have better recruitment ideas and strategies to entice new nursing graduates to work for them and encourage more students to take up nursing to cope with the growing need of nurses worldwide.