Page 23 - BusinessWest June 12, 2023

“Learning
to become a nurse means understanding the realities of the nursing workforce today.”
for instance, two recent graduates profiled on pages 26 and 28 — they were influenced by a parent’s career in the field. But that passion also quickly gets tempered by the realities of an increasingly chal- lenging job.
“When we build a strong nursing workforce, it begins with education. And educators are tasked with teaching the new demands of the healthcare system,” Reske said, with factors ranging from pop- ulation-health concerns to a more interdisciplinary focus in patient care. “Learning to become a nurse means understanding the realities of the nursing workforce today.”
Those realities come at a time when staffing shortages have increased stress on nurses. At a time when the annual Gallup Honesty and Ethics poll, released in January, ranks nursing as the most trusted profession for the 21st year in a row, nurses are feeling strain.
In fact, the American Hospital Assoc. (AHA)
reports that about 100,000 registered nurses
left the workforce during the past two years due
to stress, burnout, and retirements, and another
610,388 intend to leave by 2027, according to a
recent study by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN).
“The pandemic has stressed nurses to leave the workforce
and has expedited an intent to leave in the near future, which
will become a greater crisis and threaten patient populations if solutions are not enacted immediately,” said Maryann Alexander, NCSBN’s chief officer of Nursing Regulation. “There is an urgent opportunity today for healthcare systems, policymakers, regulators, and academic leaders to coalesce and enact solutions that will spur positive systemic evolution to address these challenges and maxi- mize patient protection in care into the future.”
Among other recommendations to strengthen the healthcare workforce, AHA has urged federal lawmakers to invest in nursing
Westfield State University President Linda Thompson, left, and Holyoke Community College President Christina Royal shake hands after signing a dual-enrollment nursing program agreement.
schools, nurse faculty salaries, and hospital training time; enact fed- eral protections for healthcare workers against violence and intimi- dation; support apprenticeship programs for nursing assistants; increase funding for the National Health Service Corps and the National Nurse Corps; and support expedition of visas for foreign- trained nurses.
For its part, Baystate Health said the Gallup poll is worth celebrating.
“The honor comes as nurses throughout the country, including
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