Last month, President Biden’s administration for the first time imposed minimum staffing requirements on nursing homes. While intended to be a crucial step toward ensuring high-quality patient care and alleviating the burden on health-care professionals, the mandate brings to light a significant challenge: a nationwide shortage of qualified nursing staff amid a rapidly aging population. With more than 10,000 Americans turning 65 each day, the United States will need more than 206,000 additional nurses by 2030, and our current workforce development pipeline is ill-equipped to fill this gap.
To meet this growing demand and comply with the new staffing standards, it is imperative the industry embrace innovative workforce development solutions. Current programs tend to focus on traditional education and training paths. While these are undoubtedly essential, they are no longer sufficient to meet the rapidly evolving demands of the health-care industry. Recognizing the challenges many people face in accessing opportunity, it is critical that any workforce development program address not only professional development, but also the social determinants that can impede it.
Prospective and current nurses often juggle educational responsibilities with personal obligations, where lack of child care, inadequate transportation and unstable housing can become significant barriers to entering and remaining in the health-care field. To succeed, workforce development programs must extend beyond traditional training to include comprehensive wraparound services such as subsidized child care, transportation vouchers and affordable housing. Person-centered case management is also integral to help students navigate personal and professional challenges while setting and achieving career ladder goals. This type of holistic support will not only help attract more people to the field but also greatly improve program retention and completion.
We must invest in comprehensive and innovative support services to help fill critical positions and build a more resilient, dedicated and diverse nursing workforce that is well-equipped to meet the complex demands of today’s health-care landscape.
Read in The Washington Post.