I.
Background
An
adequate supply of nurses is essential
to achieving the Nation’s goals of ensuring
access to affordable, high-quality healthcare.
The adequacy of nurse supply varies geographically
throughout the Nation, with a general
consensus that at the national level currently
a moderate shortage of registered nurses
(RN) exists. The findings of our analysis
suggest that the current RN shortage will
continue to grow in severity during the
next 20 years if current trends prevail
and that some States face a more severe
shortage than do others. The growth and
aging of the population, along with the
Nation’s continued demand for the highest
quality of care, will create a surging
demand for the services of RNs over the
coming 2 decades. At the same time, because
many RNs are approaching retirement age
and the nursing profession faces difficulties
attracting new entrants and retaining
the existing workforce, the RN supply
remains flat.
The
mission of the National Center for Health
Workforce Analysis (NCHWA) in the Bureau
of Health Professions (BHPr), Health Resources
and Services Administration (HRSA), is
to collect, analyze, and disseminate
health workforce information and facilitate
national, State, and local workforce planning
efforts. To meet this mission as it
pertains to the nurse workforce, NCHWA
collects data on the nurse workforce through
its quadrennial Sample Survey of Registered
Nurses (SSRN) and maintains two models
to project the RN supply and demand: the
Nursing Supply Model (NSM) and the Nursing
Demand Model (NDM). In this paper, we
provide a brief overview of these two
models; describe the data, methods, and
assumptions used to project RN supply
and demand; present findings from the
models; and discuss the limitations of
these and other models and methods to
forecast demand for health workers. [1] |