As the nation grapples with a nursing shortage – exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic – the medical community in the South Bend area is scrambling to find long-term solutions for the area.
They are exploring various options, including forming partnerships with local colleges in hopes of creating a pool of nurses who will train locally and work in area hospitals.
“The nursing shortage is a national crisis,” said Loretta Schmidt, chief nursing officer at St. Joseph Regional Medical Center. “Almost every health care specialty faces workforce challenges.”
The nursing shortage has been a decades-old problem in the healthcare industry. However, the pandemic has exacerbated the problem. Schmidt said experts estimate that the country will face a severe nursing shortage by 2030, which will have serious ramifications for access to care.
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About 500,000 nurses are expected to leave the workforce by the end of 2022, resulting in a national shortfall of about 1.1 million nurses, according to estimates from the American Hospital Association.
In January, about 30% of Indiana hospitals reported “severe staffing shortages,” and the Indiana Hospital Association estimates that the state will need an additional 5,000 nurses by 2031.
Exacerbating the national trend is the fact that the average lifespan of nurses continues to rise, which means that more nurses are about to retire each year. Today, the average lifespan of nurses is 43.7 years, up from 38.9 years in 1978, and the percentage of nurses older than 55 has increased from 13% to 23% over the same period.
The alarming rate of patient-to-nurse ratios exacerbates the problem by causing nurses to burn out faster. About 84% of emergency room nurses and 96% of critical care nurses have a ratio of 4 to 1, which is twice the optimal target of 2 to 1.
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“It scares me for the patients because they deserve better, but it also scares me for the nurses because it’s hard enough to have three to four patients, but then they get bigger, and they get overwhelmed,” said Emily Farley, a senior nursing student at St. Mary’s College. They are more likely to make mistakes.” “I think it’s really sad.”
Addressing the nursing shortage, Schmidt said, will require creativity, especially in the area of education.
Saint Mary’s introduces direct admissions nursing program, builds new facility
St. Mary’s director of admissions Sarah Gallagher Dvorak said the college is aware of the nursing shortage problem and is “doing everything we can” to make the nursing program stronger to attract students and set them up for success.
This fall, the college offered a new Direct Admissions into Nursing Science program to incoming freshmen who meet certain academic criteria. Traditionally, St. Mary’s students must be accepted into the nursing science program at the end of their sophomore year in college. With the new Direct Entry Program, qualified students are guaranteed a place in the nursing program before they even arrive on campus.
Dvorak said the direct admissions program is “really exciting because students want to know when they get out of high school that they’re going to be able to get into a nursing program.”
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The institution admitted 59 students to its inaugural direct admission class. Students will have to meet certain academic criteria to remain in the program until the end of the second year.
Despite the nursing shortage, Dvorak said the college has seen a 10% increase in applications to the nursing program over the past four years. Applications peaked in 2020, but enrollment continues to rise.
The college has also upgraded its facilities for the nursing program. In the fall of 2021, the first phase of the state-of-the-art Integrated Health Education Center opened. The project was funded in part by a $1 million grant from the Lilly Foundation.
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It has a simulation lab that offers 11 specialized mannequins, which allow students to practice general bedside skills as well as specialties such as labor and delivery, ICU care, and pediatrics. Because St. Mary’s students only get one day in the clinic each week, Farley said, the models give them valuable experience in the practice of patient care.
“It’s cool, and there’s a lot of new stuff,” said this Pittsburgh native who’s studying to be a pediatric nurse practitioner. “It’s just a better learning environment.”
Partner of Ivy Tech and the Beacon Health System to provide scholarships and jobs
Ivy Tech Community College South Bend-Elkhart and the Beacon Health System are also working to address the nursing shortage in the area.
The community college recently increased the number of spots in the two-year associate of science in nursing program from 40 to 60 students, and the number of spots in the 18-month practical nursing program, or LPN program, from 20 to 40 students.
“We started to feel inadequate (in nursing) at the beginning of the COVID outbreak… There was a lot of stuff going on at that time,” recalls Sharvon Robinson, dean of the Beacon Health System School in Norcen.g. “So, to help meet the needs of the community, we’ve increased the number of our programs.”
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Robinson said she wishes she could increase access to nursing programs at Ivy Tech, but with a nursing shortage comes a shortage of certified nursing faculty.
“We’ve seen a lot of nurses who might have an interest, but work too much to work (on faculty),” said Robinson.
This year, Ivy Tech South Bend-Elkhart partnered with the Beacon Health System to launch the Beacon Scholar Program. The program seeks to address the nursing shortage in multiple aspects by attracting nursing students, providing nursing faculty to Ivy Tech, and preparing students to fill nursing roles within Beacon.
Robinson explained that the Beacon Scholar Program provides Ivy Tech ASN students with a full scholarship and an additional living stipend. Over the course of the two-year program, the total living stipend is about $17,250, said Beacon Scholars Project Director Darren Duversbeck.
The program also pays for students’ nursing licensing exam costs and exam review materials during their final semester. In addition, the Beacon Scholars were promised a job as a Beacon Health nurse after graduation.
Currently, 82% of the ASN class benefit from the Beacon Scholar Program, Robinson said.
Through the Beacon-Ivy Tech partnership, Beacon also provides Ivy Tech with a “hybrid faculty,” full-time nurses who also teach in the college’s nursing program.
“Beacon has a nurse shortage, and we have the nursing program, so it was just a really good partnership to support our students,” said Robinson. “It helps remove some of the barriers that we see in our students, which are financial barriers.”
What contributes to the national nursing shortage??
A recent Hospital IQ survey of more than 200 registered nurses working in American hospitals revealed why the nursing profession does not attract and retain new people:
- 90% of respondents have considered leaving nursing in the next year.
- 71% of nurses with more than 15 years of experience have considered leaving within the next few months.
- 72% of respondents said they experienced burnout long before the pandemic hit.
- 43% revealed that due to a shortage of technicians in their hospitals, nurses are now assigned non-nursing tasks such as cleaning hospital rooms, purchasing supplies, and completing clerical duties.
Contact Tribune reporter Claire Reid at CEReid@gannett.com.