The Nurse Shortage

Abstract

The proportion of vacant positions for registered nurses in hospitals doubled between September 1985 and December 1986,¹ reaching the levels of the last national nursing shortage of 1979. Current reports of vacancies are perplexing in the light of the size of the nation's supply of nurses. The output of nurses has doubled over the past 30 years, greatly exceeding the population growth, and licensed registered nurses now number 2.1 million. Between 1977 and 1984 alone, the number of employed nurses increased by 55 percent, as compared with an 8 percent growth in population.² Intuitively, it would seem that an increased . . .