Facts from the ANSR (Americans for Nursing Shortage Relief) Letter to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies dated March 31, 2008.

Nursing is one of the largest health care professions in the United States, with an estimated 2.9 million licensed RNs.

Approximately three out of five jobs are in hospitals.

A federal report published in 2004 estimates that by 2020 the national nursing shortage will increase to more than one million full-time nurse positions.  According to these projections, which are based on the current rate of nurses entering the profession, only 64% of projected demand will be met. 

A 2007 study that uses different assumptions published in Health Affairs has adjusted the demand projection to 340,000 nurses by 2020. 

Even with a vacancy of only 340,000 nurses, this shortage still results in a frightening gap in nursing service that is approximately three times the 2001 nursing shortage.

Nursing vacancies exist throughout the entire health care system, including long-term care, home care, and public health.  Even the Department of Veterans Affairs, the largest sole employer of RNs in the U.S., has a nursing vacancy rate of 10 percent.

In 2005, the American Hospital Association reported that hospitals needed 118,000 more RNs to fill immediate vacancies, and that this 8.5 percent vacancy rate is hampering the hospitals’ ability to provide emergency care.

Government estimates indicate that this situation only promises to worsen due to an insufficient supply of individuals matriculating in nursing schools, an aging existing workforce, and the inadequate availability of nursing faculty to educate and train the next generation of nurses.

At the exact same time that the nursing shortage is expected to worsen, the baby boom generation is aging and the number of individuals with serious, life-threatening, and chronic conditions requiring nursing care will increase.

A particular focus on securing and retaining adequate numbers of faculty is essential to ensure that all individuals interested in – and qualified for – nursing school can matriculate in the year they are accepted.

In the 2005-2006 academic year, research reported by the National League for Nursing found that schools of nursing rejected more than 88,000 qualified applications because of shortages of faculty, classroom space, and clinical placement for students.

Aside from having a limited number of faculty, nursing programs struggle to provide space for clinical laboratories and to secure a sufficient number of clinical training sites

at health care facilities.