Our nation is dealing with a extreme scarcity of nurses, with many U.S. hospitals struggling to fulfill calls for for affected person care. By subsequent yr, we’re anticipated to face a scarcity of as much as 450,000 nurses. Allied well being professionals reminiscent of phlebotomists, pharmacy technicians and medical assistants are additionally in extraordinarily excessive demand.
Except new insurance policies are created to assist appeal to and prepare new expertise, we’ll by no means have sufficient healthcare professionals to fill the gaps within the workforce, and affected person care will finally endure. I imagine it’s essential for policymakers to create new pipelines for healthcare jobs — beginning in highschool.
Many components contribute to the rising healthcare workforce scarcity, from coverage and coaching boundaries to excessive turnover and burnout. One of the vital urgent challenges we have now as we speak is in constructing highschool college students’ consciousness of and curiosity within the healthcare area, particularly within the many out there nursing and allied well being positions.
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As a nurse educator and the mom of a excessive schooler, I do know many younger individuals who have excessive aspirations however aren’t acquainted with the handfuls of various paths to a rewarding profession in healthcare.
Surveys present that 58 % of highschool college students are fascinated with jobs that require particular abilities, like nursing. However many graduates really feel not sure about what to check in school or what profession path to choose. And a few 30 % will not be following a deliberate profession or instructional path in any respect.
This hole presents a possibility for us to construct college students’ information of and consciousness about healthcare whereas they’re nonetheless in highschool. That might imply sponsoring well being schooling lessons or internet hosting nurses to talk at job gala’s.
It may imply encouraging college students to take part in instructional applications to make sure they’re academically ready for the rigor of nursing college previous to their enrollment, or offering healthcare career-focused area journeys to allow them to get an actual sense of the numerous completely different roles that nurses play.
Job-shadowing alternatives and simulation labs at native hospitals, healthcare amenities and faculties may additionally present college students with visible, in-person experiences that expose them to the array of alternatives within the area.
There may be typically restricted understanding of what it means to construct a profession in nursing or allied well being, fields that embody a wealthy tapestry of various roles and healthcare settings. For instance, careers in nursing can vary from being a licensed nursing assistant in a nursing house to a registered nurse in an emergency room to a Ph.D. nursing educator in a classroom.
For allied well being, a profession may imply being a medical coder in a physician’s workplace, an EKG technician in a hospital or performing quite a lot of different roles.
In brief, there are numerous fulfilling methods to earn a dwelling whereas bettering our communities — and never all of these paths require going to medical college or finishing a four-year program.
Faster factors of entry to the sphere, reminiscent of by means of coaching applications and affiliate levels, are simply as essential for college kids starting their healthcare skilled journeys.
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By partnering with native hospitals, well being methods, medical teams and even increased schooling amenities that supply levels in healthcare, highschool college and college students might help develop a higher understanding of and curiosity in nursing as a career.
In some states, efforts are already underway. Maryland, Missouri and Florida — amongst different states — have invested in the way forward for the nursing workforce by offering grants that help nursing applications by means of recruitment and retention and improve present instructional applications. In North Carolina, my native college methods have partnered with a grant-funded program to assist excessive schoolers get credentialed after which intern at hospitals of their senior yr.
With the fitting help and investments, policymakers and faculties can improve consciousness of the essential position nursing performs in delivering high quality, patient-focused care to our communities throughout our nation.
By beginning early, we might help flip the tide on the nursing and allied well being skilled scarcity and construct a strong excessive school-to-healthcare-worker pipeline to make sure that all sufferers have entry to high-quality care.
Jade Tate, MSN, RN, CNE, is a NCLEX companies supervisor at ATI Nursing Schooling. She relies in North Carolina.
This story about healthcare profession schooling was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, unbiased information group centered on inequality and innovation in schooling. Join Hechinger’s publication.
