Everyone in healthcare has been aware for years that there is a shortage of nurses. But now Cheryl Peterson, senior policy fellow, American Nursing Association, calls the current situation "The Perfect Storm."

"Nurses are getting older," she begins, their average age reported to be between 43 and 46. "Those nurses are beginning to retire and there are not enough senior nurses left to continue teaching. At the same time, funding for nursing education is being cut just as millions of baby boomers are starting to utilize medical facilities."

The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) recently took the temperature of the nursing shortage indicators and the numbers, from varying sources, are staggering:
· According to the February 2007 Health Affairs, the shortage of registered nurses will increase to 340,000 by 2020, three times the current rate.

· They also report that 55 percent of nurses surveyed by Nursing Management intend to retire between 2011 and 2020. The majority of them are highly trained nurse managers.

· All 50 states will experience a shortage to varying degrees by 2015.

· U.S. hospitals already need approximately 118,000 RNs to fill vacant posts nationwide, according to the American Hospital Association, with 49 percent of hospital CEOs noting "more difficulty in recruiting nurses."

· According to the latest projections from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 1.2 million new and replacement nurses will be needed by 2014. Government analysts project over 700,000 new RN positions will be created through 2014, but that will still leave nearly a quarter of the positions needed unfilled. Worth Noting: the average age of Baby Boomers will be 68.

"It's quite an unmanageable problem," Peterson says, adding, "It's been going on for years, resulting in a decline in ANA enrollment and a decline in nursing school applications, along with a deterioration of the work environment."

"The RN shortage is worldwide," says Lewis Freeman, a RN case manager at NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases. "Nursing is still considered a 'hot' profession'," he insists, "with many new opportunities for nurses opening in Homecare." But that's a high-tech job requiring IV infusions, chemo and wound care. New positions, such as Nurse Practitioners, also have been created, allowing nurses with advanced degrees to write prescriptions, among other "advanced" duties.

Europe is short of nurses, Freeman adds, and developing countries are actively seeking foreign RNs, especially from English-speaking countries. And those nurses from the Philippines, India and Africa that come to the U.S. are creating shortages in their own home countries.

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