Virginia Association of Colleges of Nursing
About VACN
Virginia is unprepared for nursing shortage
The nursing shortage is here to stay, at least until 2020--a forecast that hits home for anyone who will reach age 65 before then.
Statistically, people over age 65 require more nursing care than their younger counterparts. So just when the baby boomers are pressing those nurse call buttons, there simply may not be enough nurses to answer.
In fact, projections tell us that 1 million new and replacement nurses will be needed in the U.S. health care system by 2010. Virginia must take action now, or else face potentially immeasurable costs in quality health care.
Virginia data are consistent with the national trend: The need for nurses in the commonwealth will outpace the supply by a wide margin. By 2020, the demand in Virginia for full-time nurses will be 70,200, while the expected supply will be 44,000 -- a short fall of 26,200.
Not only do we need more nurses in the United States, but we need the right kind of nurses -- those trained in modern medicine.
With health care becoming ever more complex, the amount of knowledge need by nurses mounts daily. Today's nurse must be educated both to care for patients and to manage the sophisticated equipment and technology found in today's, and tomorrow's medical facilities.
Can you imagine being in a hospital in 2020 with one-third fewer nurses than we have today?
Multiple factors collided to bring us to this point. First, there was a six-year decline in nursing school enrollment that bottomed out in 2001, after a total decrease of about one-third from previous levels.
Since then, though, schools of nursing have seen large jumps in their applicant pools. In Virginia, with 42 programs to prepare entry-level nurses, qualified applicants are increasingly being rejected. How can this be?
Simply put, many schools no longer have sufficient faculty to clinically supervise their students; neither do they have the space in their facilities to teach them.
By law, nursing schools must meet a 1-to-10 faculty-student ratio in clinical training; some schools maintain a 1-to-8 ratio for safety reasons. The patients for whom our students provide care in hospitals deserve the close attention of the students and their faculty supervisor.
Not only do we have a nursing shortage, we also have a faculty shortage. In 2001-02, the average age of doctorally prepared faculty in the United States was 56.2.
In Virginia in 2003, the mean age of all nursing faculty ranged from 45 in Southwest Virginia to 54 in Northern Virginia.
What this means is that by 2015, many experienced nursing faculty are expected to retire. There are just not enough replacements for them in the educational pipeline.
Approximately 300 doctorally prepared faculty will be eligible for retirement annually between 2004 and 2012. The American Association of Colleges of Nursing reports a mere 1.5 percent increase in nursing doctoral enrollment, which will not come close to meeting the need.
An influx of new faculty is desperately needed, and the schools in Virginia with master's and doctoral programs must increase their capacity to prepare the next generation of nursing faculty.
Nursing programs have also outgrown their physical spaces. Many nursing school buildings were constructed in the 1970s or earlier, when schools taught fewer types of students in much different ways.
Back then, there were no wireless classrooms, no computerized models for simulated clinical learning, no Web-based learning. There were few master's programs and no doctoral programs.
What can be done? There a variety of options.
Entrepreneurs are establishing companies to import international nurses, providing some short-term relief. But foreign nurses' level of education may not be the same as those trained here, and U.S. technology and complex American medical centers may be different from what nurses educated in India, Sri Lanka and the Philippines are familiar with.
What would help is commonwealth investment in work force development in nursing. The broad-based Governor's Advisory Council on the Future of Nursing recommended three proposals to begin relieving the nursing shortage in Virginia.
Essentially, these proposals are designed to aid those state-supported schools of nursing that can and will increase their capacity to educate more nurses at the entry and graduate levels. Virginia's schools of nursing stand ready to be a participant in relieving the nursing shortage.
The Virginia Association of Colleges of Nursing's mission is to improve health care through the advancement of baccalaureate and higher degree education for professional nursing. More specifically, the purposes of VACN are to:
To fulfill its purposes, VACN has established the following goals:
The Virginia Association of Colleges of Nursing supports the position that baccalaureate education in nursing is the entry level to professional nursing practice. We believe that baccalaureate nursing education broadens world views, enhances critical thinking and problem-solving skills, and advances the knowledge base for professional practice. We recognize that the practice of professional nursing can only be viewed within the context of the society it serves and the health care delivery system ofwhich it is a part. Because society is experiencing rapid change and increasing diversity, it demands and expects health care which emphasizes promotion of health, prevention of illness, and humane treatment of illness and the human responses to illness for all citizens at affordable cost. The nursing profession has a responsibility to respond to societal change and diversity and to the demand for access, quality, and cost effectiveness in health care. Baccalaureate and higher degree nursing education plays a pivotal role in this process.
In support of its goals to promote quality baccalaureate and higher degree education in nursing, and prepare sufficient graduates to meet nursing needs in the Commonwealth, the Virginia Association of Colleges of Nursing affirms the long-standing Virginia tradition of diversity in higher education. We acknowledge that each nursing program operates an integral part of its parent institution and thus shares in this diversity. We believe that this diversity has fostered the development of uniqueness and strengths in each of our baccalaureate and higher degree programs and has enriched nursing education in Virginia.
The Virginia Association of Colleges of Nursing believes in educational mobility for all students including registered nurses and supports the development and implementation of mechanisms by which students are able to transfer from one academic institution to another. Experience among members schools indicates that registered nurse students with a hospital and/or Associate Degree in Nursing have acquired certain nursing knowledge and skills for which academic credit may be awarded. Historically, proficiency examinations have been the prevailing method for awarding advanced placement credit for this knowledge. We believe that proficiency examinations are not the only effective way to validate nursing knowledge and award advanced placement credit. Therefore, VACN assumes leadership in the development and implementation of new approaches for validation of prior nursing knowledge and the awarding of advanced placement credit.
Return to top
University of Virginia's College at Wise
Wise, VA
Jefferson College of
Health Sciences
Roanoke, VA
Eastern Mennonite
University
Harrisonburg, VA
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA
Hampton
University
Hampton, VA
James Madison
University
Harrisonburg, VA
Liberty
University
Lynchburg, VA
Lynchburg
College
Lynchburg, VA
Marymount University
Arlington, VA
Norfolk State
University
Norfolk, VA
Old Dominion University
Norfolk, VA
Radford University
Radford, VA
Shenandoah University
Winchester, VA
University
of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA
Virginia Commonwealth University
Richmond, VA
This page was last updated 10/21/05
Please make suggestions or report errors to
Dr. Rebecca Scheckler