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Future of the Nudrse Labor Market According to Health Execudtives in High Managed‐Care Areas of the United States
Author(s) -
Buerhaus Pedter I.,
Staiger Douglas O.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
image: the journal of nursing scholarship
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.009
H-Index - 80
eISSN - 1547-5069
pISSN - 0743-5150
DOI - 10.1111/j.1547-5069.1997.tb01023.x
Subject(s) - nursing , earnings , nursing shortage , business , health care , managed care , work (physics) , collective bargaining , quality (philosophy) , metropolitan area , medicine , psychology , nurse education , economic growth , labour economics , finance , economics , mechanical engineering , philosophy , epistemology , pathology , engineering
Purpose :To understand how the work environment of nurses is changing in states with high enrollment in health maintenance organizations (HMOs), the underlying forces driving change, and how these forces are expected to affect employment and states with high enrollment in HMOs are generally regarded as indicative of the future for all the United States. Design : Survey in 1995 of a convenience sample of 62 health excutives in 11 states with high enrollment in HMOs. Excutives included officals in state goverments, state and metropolitan hospital associations, professional an nonprofessional nursing associations, state boards of nursing, community and public health, home health care, nursing homes, other non‐acute care associations, and leading HMOs. Methods : Through structured telephone interviews, executives were asked about changes in nurse employment, earnings, collective bargaining, fringe benefits, nurses' roles, substitution of licensed practical nurses (LPNs) and aids for RNs, patients severity, quality of patient care, and expectations for nurse employment during the remainder of the decade. Findings : Executives perceive a mostly and fast‐changing nurse labor market but they are concerned about the aging RN work force, possible development of an RN shortage, and linking quality of patient care to the provision of nursing services. They doubt the ability of nurse educators to respond quickly to th need to prepare nurses for rapidly changing employer requirements. Conclusions : Public and private forces are causing rapid, profound changes in health care delivery and throughout the nurse labor market. These changes are most evident in the shift in these changes, no evidence of an “employment disaster” exists it the views of health