WORKING TO LESSEN AMERICA''S NURSING SHORTAGE
The current nursing shortage poses a significant threat to the ability of our health care system to deliver quality care. The New England Journal of Medicine published a disturbing study last year that found that nursing shortages in hospitals are associated with a higher risk of complications and even death. It found that patients in hospitals with fewer registered nurses were more likely to suffer from complications such as urinary infections and pneumonia, to stay in the hospital longer, and to die from treatable conditions like shock and gastrointestinal bleeding.
These terrible facts aren't surprising. Nurses are the eyes and ears of the hospital. They often serve as an "early warning system" when complications begin to develop – but problems cannot be detected and addressed early if nurses don't have time to spend with their patients. Another study reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association last year found that each additional patient in a nurse's workload meant an increase of about seven percent in the likelihood that the patient would die within 30 days of admission.
While the situation is grave today, we face even greater problems in the future. Our current nursing workforce is aging. In Maine, 61 percent of our registered nurses are at least 40 years old. As a consequence, many of our nurses will be retiring just as the aging baby boomers begin to place additional demands on our health care system. The nursing shortage is therefore sure to worsen if we do not do more to support the current workforce and encourage more young people to choose nursing as a profession.
Last year, I authored the Nurse Reinvestment Act, to do just that, and I was pleased when the President signed it into law. The legislation, which had overwhelming bipartisan support, authorizes scholarships to nursing students who agree to provide at least two years of service in a health care facility with a critical nursing shortage. It creates career ladders to help nurses and other health professionals advance in their careers, provides loan cancellation for nurses with advanced degrees in exchange for teaching at a school of nursing, improves nurse retention by promoting nurse involvement in organizational decision-making, and provides specialized training for nurses.
The Nurse Reinvestment Act builds on existing nurse education programs that provide loan repayments to nurses, improve the diversity of the nursing workforce, and expand opportunities for nursing education at all levels. All these programs play a vital role in recruiting nurses and making certain that they have the training that they need to care for patients.
The promise of this legislation and our other nurse education programs, however, cannot be kept without an adequate investment of funds. Increasing the funding level for these important programs in the next fiscal year will allow them to expand to address nursing shortages in communities across the country. I am pleased to report that my colleagues recently approved an amendment I authored to increase funding for the Nurse Reinvestment Act and other nursing workforce development programs by an additional $50 million, bringing total funding to almost $163 million. This funding will help ensure that these important programs can continue to make an important difference in the recruitment and training of nurses across America.
The care that nurses provide is an essential part of our health care system, and it is imperative that we make sure we are able to sustain an adequate nursing workforce. I am hopeful that the legislation we have passed and worked to fund will help to improve the quality of care in and out of hospitals in Maine and the rest of America.
