Nursing Crisis

There is a critical need to increase the number of qualified nurses in Pennsylvania who are committed to providing immediate and long-term care for the Commonwealth's citizens. The increasing number of older citizens who require medical services, combined with rising education costs for nursing students and schools - and the continued decline of Pennsylvania's nurse population, results in a shortage that will only worsen.

Nurses provide most of the nation's long-term care, are the primary providers of hospital patient care, and compise the largest single component of hospital staff. Today's shortage of nurses is spurred by:

• a growing population of elderly patients who are more intensely ill, and in need of more skilled nurses per patient;
• the rapid growth of front-line primary care;
• technological advances requiring highly skilled nurses;
• an aging RN workforce. The average age of Pennsylvania RN is 45.9 years; and 47% of PA's nurse population plan to leave the profession within the next 10 years;
• a declining entry-level Bachelor of Science in Nursing enrollment rate, falling 2.1 percent in fall 2000, dropping for the sixth year in a row; and
• in Pennsylvania alone, 27 nurse education programs have closed in since 1993.