Recorded presentation

Patricia Minors, PhD, MBA, Department of Public Health, Healthcare Administration, Western Kentucky University, 1 Big Red Way, Bowling Green, KY 42101-3576, 270-745-4797, pat.minors@wku.edu

For the most recent decade, issues and problems of nurse retention, as well as recruitment, have been discussed, negotiated, and despaired over with very little improvement in U.S. hospital staffing. The situation is not a new one, that is, nursing shortages have occurred in the past, and yet health care survived the challenges wrought. The current cycle of nursing shortages imparts new attributes that management thought did not exist during previous nursing shortages. Nevertheless, those features were already there, simply not seen or understood because they were as new to the world as the children being born in that era. The children born after the last major shortage heralded new work ethic and workplace expectations. Not finding these ideals, whether tangible or intangible, that generation chose one of two paths. Down the first, nursing as a career was never considered, or, those who did choose nursing revisited the decision. Down the second path, sociologists found that mothers who once encouraged their daughters to follow in their maternal nursing footsteps, instead beseeched their daughters to reject nursing as a career. This presentation will examine the seeds of the nurse shortage that germinated at the close of the previous nurse shortage. After describing the changed environments, work ethics, alternative opportunities, etc., the presentation will assess current strategies used by organizations today. The final part presents innovations that have greater viability for retention by recognizing the changes that have been underestimated.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this presentation, the participant will be able to

• Recognize the defining characteristics of a "nursing shortage".
• Differentiate the features of the current nursing shortage from those of previous decades.
• Articulate the failures both to understand the origins of the recent shortage, and to act on them.
• Construct alternatives acceptable to both nursing organizations and their administrative teams.
• Evaluate the outcomes of mutually agreed upon strategies that will sustain the livelihoods of all parties involved.

Keywords: Nurses, Staff Retention

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.

Recorded presentation