Shortage of Nurse Educators Exacerbating Nurse Staffing Crisis

AFT Releases Annual "State of Healthcare Workforce" Almanac

WASHINGTON--A nationwide shortage of qualified nurse educators who will teach nursing students is exacerbating the existing staffing crisis affecting hospitals and the quality of patient care, one of the many findings in AFT Healthcare’s annual "State of the Healthcare Workforce" almanac released today.

The 2003 almanac was issued at the start of AFT Healthcare’s annual Professional Issues Conference, which is focusing on insufficient hospital staffing and developing ways to recruit and retain nurses, respiratory therapists, X-ray technicians, certified nursing assistants and other healthcare workers. AFT Healthcare will announce that it is organizing a task force to address the nurse faculty shortage.

According to the 2003 almanac, there are not enough qualified faculty to teach nursing school students, thereby forcing qualified applicants to abandon, at least temporarily, their career pursuit. The American Association of Colleges of Nursing has reported a national vacancy rate of faculty in nursing schools of 7.4 percent. Also, AACN found that almost 11 percent of all qualified applicants to nursing schools in 2000 were not accepted--often because of a shortage of faculty.

"The staffing crisis must be attacked on multiple fronts. We need incentives for nurses to become qualified to teach and incentives for people to become nurses and stay in the profession," said Sandra Feldman, president of the American Federation of Teachers and AFT Healthcare. "The staffing crisis is a life-or-death situation, with the quality of patient care hanging in the balance."

The 2003 almanac can be downloaded from our Web site here:

State of the Healthcare Workforce 2003 (pdf, 1.8 mb)

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The AFT represents more than 1.3 million pre-K through 12th-grade teachers, paraprofessionals and other school support employees, higher education faculty, nurses and other healthcare workers, and state and local government employees.