November 13, 2017 – Nursing Shortage

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Anchor lead: Your hospital nurse may hail from almost anywhere, Elizabeth Tracey reports

New cars, relocation allowances, free housing…perks for nurses willing to travel to understaffed areas of our country abound, a recent study looking at our national nursing shortage reports. Patricia Davidson, dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, comments.

Davidson: Without those traveling nurses beds will be closed, procedures will be canceled and people will be not getting the care they need. It really is a call to action to look at health workforce planning much more strategically, we know that there are issues in retaining nurses in acute care settings. Many of those reasons are complex and multifacteted, it’s a really hard job, it’s very taxing physically and emotionally.  :30

Davidson says for the most part people shouldn’t worry that traveling nurses won’t provide good care since they must be licensed, but says there’s no question that familiarity with how things are done in different hospitals also matters. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.