The nursing industry is growing by leaps and bounds, but the demand has kept a clear lead for more than 25 years.
Maryland hospitals need 2,340more nurses just to fill existing jobs, a vacancy rate of 13 percent, a new survey by the Maryland Hospital Association shows.
“I have 400 more nurses than I did five years ago, and next year I?ll have more,” said Karen Haller, vice president of nursing and patient care services for Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. “There?s never been a day since the government began keeping records in 1980 that demand for nursing has gone down.”
That demand creates upward pressure on nurses? wages, benefits and general working conditions, she said. An inexperienced nurse straight out of a two-year program can earn $45,000, and a top-paid bedside-care nurse at Hopkins could make as much as $155,000.
With the graying of the baby boomer generation, Haller doesn?t see wages or demand going down anytime soon.
After two years of improvement, vacancy rates are climbing again, from 10 percent in 2005 to 13 percent in 2006, according to the MHA. Vacancies hit a high of 15.6 percent in 2001 before declining, as recruitment and training programs began to pay off.
The 2006 reversal marks a troubling trend, MHA Vice President Catherine M. Crowley said in a statement.
If nothing is done to address the problem, the association estimates Maryland will have a shortfall of 10,000 nurses in less than a decade.
A high-level group of hospital and academic leaders convened by MHA to develop a comprehensive response to the shortfall is expected to report its findings in September.
Johns Hopkins? School of Nursing is doing what it can now.
The Anne M. Pinkard building, opened in 1998, is already overcrowded, with classes spilling into cafe space and basements. A $42 million addition is scheduled to open in 2010.
“We?re having to double up faculty in offices,” said Anne Belcher, associate dean of nursing. The school graduated 310 students this year, compared with less than 200 in 2000, when Belcher assumed her role.
On the other hand, hospitals are doing a good job keeping their talent. Of 41 positions surveyed by MHA, retention was nearly 86 percent, and 89 percent for nurses.
