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Following Florence Nightingale's Example
BY RICKI GARRETT

I often tell the business leaders and policy makers in our state that we are overlooking the largest economic engine in our country today, namely healthcare. According to the September 25 issue of Business Week, the number of health services jobs in Mississippi rose while the total number of jobs declined. Over the next 25 year period, 30 to 40 percent of the new jobs that will be created will be in healthcare. With 70 million baby boomers aging in our country, more than 1.1 million new nurses will be needed by the year 2012.

The simple solution would seem to be just educating more nurses for the workplace. The problem, however, is that we already have a shortage of nursing faculty and, with 25 percent of them eligible for retirement, the problem is only worsening. In fact, in studies in 1995 and 2000, nursing faculty were referred to as an endangered species, one generation away from extinction. This problem is easily understood when you take into consideration the fact that nurses in a clinical career can, in some instances, make twice the income of what those in teaching make.

The nursing shortage in our state and nation can't and won't be solved until we address the nursing faculty shortage head on. This past year, our schools of nursing turned away more than 2,300 qualified applicants to nursing school because they did not have sufficient faculty to teach them. We must have the capability to teach more students, and we must graduate more of those students that are admitted.

To this end, Mississippi Nurses Association (MNA), Mississippi Council of Deans and Directors of Schools of Nursing, Mississippi Hospital Association (MHA), Office of Nursing Workforce and others have come together to develop a strategic plan for addressing the nursing faculty shortage statewide. The legislature in the 2006 session approved a $6,000 pay raise for the nursing faculty with a promise of an additional $6,000 raise in this session. MNA and MHA, in order to educate the public about this crisis, have developed an awareness campaign entitled Saving Nurses/Saves Lives. Everyone needs to know how serious the nursing shortage is and what the implications are for individual patients and for the future of our healthcare system.

The good news is that we are making progress. In fact, these initiatives are being recognized by nursing leaders in other states who want to use them as models in their own states. However, there is much work to do. We must develop some innovative, creative ways to deliver nursing education, particularly for those nurses who work full time but who seek an advanced degree in order to teach. We must also retain and recruit faculty, not only with increased pay, but with incentives such as scholarships, loan forgiveness for teaching in Mississippi, and others.

The Mississippi Office of Nursing Workforce has recently received a Robert Wood Johnson grant to assist with the faculty shortage issue. This funding will allow ONW to focus on several of the initiatives that have been recommended in the strategic plan. They include developing multiple adjunct faculty roles with relationships between service and education; developing innovative accelerated tracks to a faculty career; implementing an image and recruitment campaign; and improving workplace cultures.

Florence Nightingale once said, "I never gave or took an excuse." Despite her own health problems, she created a revolution in the healthcare of her times. The issues facing us today are just as daunting, and we must all work together to solve them. There is no time for excuses. The collaborative efforts to address the nursing faculty shortage in our state are a beginning step in assuring that all Mississippians have the quality nursing care that they deserve.


May 2007

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