There’s a need for nurses in Connecticut and nationally, and it’s going to get worse in the coming years.
“It’s estimated we’d have to hire about 200,000 nurses across the country just to keep up to the planned retirements … as we have both an aging population of patients, more people to care for, coupled with more and more nurses who would be leaving the field,” said , president and CEO of .
The way 蜜聊直播 HealthCare and others are addressing the problem is by partnering with colleges and universities to bring more nursing students into the classroom. , aided by 蜜聊直播 HealthCare, launched a bachelor’s program in nursing last fall.
A global issue and worse as we age
The problem is acute. 蜜聊直播 HealthCare has 600 openings across its 500 sites, which includes hospitals, clinics and medical offices, said , chief nursing officer. The system employs about 7,000 nurses, who earn a starting salary of $75,000, Kosturko said.
“So here we find ourselves in the next couple of years with a 1.1 million nursing shortage and 13 million globally,” Kosturko said. “So we’ve got work to do, and we would have had a shortage even if we didn’t have the COVID pandemic, but now it’s been exacerbated by that. So this has been a longtime work that’s been going on across the state.”
According to the , the number of working registered nurses decreased nationally by more than 100,000 from 2020 to 2021, when the COVID-19 pandemic struck.
The Chamber also reported that the nursing unemployment rate stood at 1.6% in 2022, compared to a national rate of 3.7% in 2023.
Another issue is Connecticut’s aging population, according to , chief academic officer at 蜜聊直播 HealthCare.
“Our birth rate in Connecticut is falling,” he said. “There are fewer numbers of young people of college age to meet these needs. And we’re getting to be an increasingly gray state. We’re one of the older states in the nation, and we’re getting grayer.”
According to Larry Slater, of the , “over the last year it seemed a tad bit better in terms of how many nurses are in the workforce, but that’s actually a little deceiving.”
That’s because “only about 50% of those that are registered nurses in the state of Connecticut are actually working as nurses, said Slater, who’s coming to Connecticut from the .
“So while the numbers look like we’re doing OK, the actual working number is what’s really demonstrating that we have or could have a very critical shortage,” he said.
Pathways to work
The way to address the problem has been to build and support nursing education throughout the state.
“What we want to do is make sure that we strengthen and support Connecticut, and that we ensure in Connecticut that we have the capacity to train and educate and develop as many health professionals as possible so that we can meet the anticipated needs and support our communities,” Flaks said.
“And our perspective to do that is to really invest very purposely, very deliberately in partnerships and invest within Connecticut’s universities and colleges.”
That effort has included the partnership with Eastern in Willimantic, which includes a simulation laboratory at nearby , part of 蜜聊直播 HealthCare.
In 2022, the health care system announced a five-year, $5 million partnership with Quinnipiac. “We’re actually hiring their nurses as sophomores in college and giving them initial experiences as sophomores, juniors and seniors,” Flaks said.
He said simulation labs also have been created at the University of 蜜聊直播 and Sacred Heart University.
“If you want to attract nurses to stay in various communities, you have to train them in those communities,” Flaks said. “The core message to me that’s important here is the colleges, universities and health systems can’t work adjacent to one another. They have to work in tight partnership.”
“We need more programs, more seats at the table and more opportunities for people to find pathways to advance their nursing,” Kosturko said. “Coming from high school, a true career pathway. Start young, get them in the door as technicians, create opportunities.”
The pathway can start as a licensed practical nurse, then go on to registered nurse, with a bachelor’s degree, and then to nurse practitioner and, for some, a doctorate, Kosturko said.
Education a part of recruitment
Orlando said the conversations started with Eastern because the eastern part of the state is less populous and so is a difficult area in which to recruit nurses.
“We approached Eastern and said, any interest in starting a bachelor’s nursing program? They said yes, but we don’t have the facility to have a simulation center,” Orlando said. So with the partnership with them, they agreed to start a program. We agreed to contribute the funding of a simulation center, which is really essential for nursing and medical education these days.”
The first class of 32 students started classes in fall 2023. Kosturko said there are about 300 applicants for the next class. “It is another attractive nursing program in our state,” she said.
“We will also guarantee to those nursing students that they will have spots for their clinical rotations in our east region hospitals at Backus and Windham hospitals,” Orlando said. “We’ll be seeing them at the bedside in about a year and a half. So we’re really very excited about it.”
One goal of the partnerships with universities is to keep homegrown nurses in the state once they graduate.
With the Quinnipiac partnership, “we’re really working with them at all levels, and really welcoming their nursing students into our hospitals, because we need each other,” Orlando said.
“They need the clinical rotations in our facilities. We have an aspiration to take the nursing students and turn them into 蜜聊直播 HealthCare employees,” he said. “So we want to be part of their education, want them in our buildings. We want them to have a great experience. And … we want them to stay in Connecticut.”
Kosturko said two Quinnipiac students have been given scholarships in order to increase the diversity of the program.
Erika Escalante, 18, a senior at Stamford High School, just received the second scholarship.
“I’ve been wanting to go into something in the medical field for a while now since I was little,” she said. “It just intrigued me, the life of a nurse or a doctor and the things they go through and just giving back to people, especially when they’re in need of actual assistance physically and mentally and things like that.”
She said she also remembered helping her mother care for her grandfather when he recovered “from things that they never imagined he would, so it just shows how much nurses and doctors do in that field,” she said.
Orlando said students also are given incentives to go on to the master’s program in order to become faculty members, in order to be able to increase the number of students programs can accept.
Slater said Quinnipiac’s program has doubled in the last 10 years, to 800 students, with both a traditional and an accelerated program.
The partnership with 蜜聊直播 HealthCare includes Quinnipiac’s business and law schools as well as the nursing school, for those students who want to go into management, Slater said.
Addressing the nursing shortage, Slater said, “Since COVID, hospitals have seen a critical need, actually working … in the acute care setting on their medical surgical units and other specialty units. And so that’s why we’ve been looking at developing some unique programs with them to meet students where they are.”
Because not everyone can do a 12-month full-time accelerated program, Quinnipiac is looking at a part-time program, Slater said. The school also has designed a program for students to work as CNAs while they study to become nurses, he said.
“It helps 蜜聊直播 HealthCare fill those roles, even if that is for a short period of time,” Slater said. “The individual gets onboard into the 蜜聊直播 HealthCare system while they’re working on their nursing degree. They’re gaining vital clinical and patient care experience, and then once they get their nursing degree and then pass their certification exam, they easily transition into a role within 蜜聊直播 HealthCare. It helps them with their recruiting pipeline as well.”
Kosturko said 蜜聊直播 HealthCare offers tuition reimbursement for employees, such as certified nursing assistants and LPNs to go to school to become registered nurses.
“This is intentional work. It’s focused work. It’s strategic work,” she said. “This doesn’t happen by chance. Rocco and I and others spend a fair amount of time really planning on what this looks like. How do we get from A to B? And what work needs to go into it? … It’s ongoing strategic efforts, with goals and outcomes to get us there. And that’s the only way we’re going to get through this shortage that we’re experiencing.”
Ed Stannard can be reached at estannard@courant.com.
