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Report: 90% of nurses considering leaving the profession in the next year

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Re: Report: 90% of nurses considering leaving the profession in the next year

#541

Post by ISL »

hedora wrote: post #235
germinalphrase wrote: post #55

I have a close relation that works for one of the oldest pediatric hospitals in the country. It was recently revealed that they will be shuttering almost all pediatric services in the next year because they can 10x their profits by only serving elderly clients. The entire purpose of this organization was to provide pediatric healthcare, and it wasn’t losing money… Sometimes, it feels like we’re min-maxing ourselves t…

We’re facing some massive generational crises at this point, and it feels like the only solution is to wait for the current leadership to die off, and hope the gen x’ers fix it. The WWII generation fixed the ozone hole, but their kids didn’t lift a finger for global warming. Subsequent generations are scrambling to pick up the pieces for our kids, while crap like this, and our rapidly collapsing democracy keep sabota…

The WWII generation may have worked to fix the ozone hole, but they also unknowingly created it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorofluorocarbon#History

Re: Report: 90% of nurses considering leaving the profession in the next year

#542

Post by causality0 »

mfer wrote: post #46

I've spent a fair amount of time talking with nurses about the problems. I'm related to a bunch of people who are nurses across disciplines (ER, ICU, med/surg, etc). It's been enlightening hearing them talk about the problems... 1. Many new nurses make the same or more and long time nurses. It's frustrating when the nurse in charge with the most experience is making less than new nurses. Some hospitals are even tryin…

3. IT systems that they have to use were designed by people who have not talked with the workers who use them.

You couldn't be more right about that. Last week a nurse had to use a computer in my wife's hospital room to log that she'd given her a painkiller. The IT staff had failed to configure the hospital computers to disable windows updates or restrict them to off-hours and the nurse was forced to stand there for ten solid minutes while Update churned, the pc restarted, and Update churned some more.

Re: Report: 90% of nurses considering leaving the profession in the next year

#543

Post by whimsicalism »

germinalphrase wrote: post #55

I have a close relation that works for one of the oldest pediatric hospitals in the country. It was recently revealed that they will be shuttering almost all pediatric services in the next year because they can 10x their profits by only serving elderly clients. The entire purpose of this organization was to provide pediatric healthcare, and it wasn’t losing money… Sometimes, it feels like we’re min-maxing ourselves t…

> The entire purpose of this organization was to provide pediatric healthcare, and it wasn’t losing money…

If it's entire purpose was to provide pediatric healthcare it should probably have registered itself as a not-for-profit.

Re: Report: 90% of nurses considering leaving the profession in the next year

#544

Post by sophacles »

callmeal wrote: post #460
14 wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a Canadian stand point you American nurses are already highly paid. My brother works in the US and was recently thinking of coming back to work closer to where he grew up. The best deal he could get here was $20usd less then what he makes there. So on top of making $20 more then a nurse here he is also making it in USD. He is making huge amounts of cash as a nurse down there. How much more do nurses need?

>How much more do nurses need? Something something freemarket no longer applies when it comes to paying peons?

> Something something freemarket no longer applies when it comes to paying peons?

It never did.

Re: Report: 90% of nurses considering leaving the profession in the next year

#545

Post by geocrasher »

Nurses have an extremely hard job. Before my wife died, she spent days to weeks at at time in hospitals over and over again. She went out of her way to show them kindness despite her suffering, and they always thanked her for it. Most patients treat them like slaves and are even abusive toward them- at the very least, thankless. COVID only made this worse. It's no wonder they are leaving in droves.

Re: Report: 90% of nurses considering leaving the profession in the next year

#546

Post by [deleted] »

mfer wrote: post #46

I've spent a fair amount of time talking with nurses about the problems. I'm related to a bunch of people who are nurses across disciplines (ER, ICU, med/surg, etc). It's been enlightening hearing them talk about the problems... 1. Many new nurses make the same or more and long time nurses. It's frustrating when the nurse in charge with the most experience is making less than new nurses. Some hospitals are even tryin…

[deleted]

Re: Report: 90% of nurses considering leaving the profession in the next year

#547

Post by germinalphrase »

whimsicalism wrote: post #543
germinalphrase wrote: post #55

I have a close relation that works for one of the oldest pediatric hospitals in the country. It was recently revealed that they will be shuttering almost all pediatric services in the next year because they can 10x their profits by only serving elderly clients. The entire purpose of this organization was to provide pediatric healthcare, and it wasn’t losing money… Sometimes, it feels like we’re min-maxing ourselves t…

> The entire purpose of this organization was to provide pediatric healthcare, and it wasn’t losing money… If it's entire purpose was to provide pediatric healthcare it should probably have registered itself as a not-for-profit.

Why register as a not-for-profit when you’re profitable?

Re: Report: 90% of nurses considering leaving the profession in the next year

#548

Post by [deleted] »

cogman10 wrote: post #479
14 wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a Canadian stand point you American nurses are already highly paid. My brother works in the US and was recently thinking of coming back to work closer to where he grew up. The best deal he could get here was $20usd less then what he makes there. So on top of making $20 more then a nurse here he is also making it in USD. He is making huge amounts of cash as a nurse down there. How much more do nurses need?

> How much more do nurses need? What you need to realize is that nursing salaries in the US are NOT uniform. From what I've seen in past discussions about it is they range anywhere from $20/hr -> $100k/year. The $100k/year are usually achieved only in cities and generally only by travel nurses. The majority of nurses, that I've seen, are clocking in at 50->60k yearly salary. Sort of like saying "Oh, that google dev m…

[deleted]

Re: Report: 90% of nurses considering leaving the profession in the next year

#549

Post by vonnik »

mfer wrote: post #46

I've spent a fair amount of time talking with nurses about the problems. I'm related to a bunch of people who are nurses across disciplines (ER, ICU, med/surg, etc). It's been enlightening hearing them talk about the problems... 1. Many new nurses make the same or more and long time nurses. It's frustrating when the nurse in charge with the most experience is making less than new nurses. Some hospitals are even tryin…

I work at a startup* trying to tackle nurse burnout, and two of my family members are nurses. Here are a few things I've learned: - Nurses were getting burned out before the pandemic, and the US has a nursing shortage that's been going on for about 90 years (it started with an infrastructure buildout in the 1930s).* So it's a secular problem, with chronic as well as acute causal factors.

- There is a ladder of nursing credentials, and the shortage effects them differently. Hiring for roles like CNA and LPN/LVN has exploded because of the shortage of RNs and above. CNAs get trained in 4-12 weeks to do the heavy lifting of care; RNs get ~3 year degrees to perform much more complicated tasks.

- Burnout, and the nursing shortage, are in a positive feedback loop/downward spiral. That is, the more nurses burn out, the more they cause other nurses to burn out. Short-staffed facilities have a very hard time pulling back to normal staffing, because nobody wants to join a skeleton crew. (I know of long-term care facilities where the scheduling nurses (the bosses) are working the graveyard shift because they can't fill it.)

- Many nurses work rigid schedules on 12-14 shifts, and a lot of medical errors happen at the end of those shifts. *

- The hot US job market (Great resignation, great reshuffle) is hitting nursing especially hard; it is very sensitive to external shocks. There are paths to easier work and higher pay.

- Many healthcare facilities and systems don't give nurses flexibility or the possibility of advancement. (One family member will need to quit her current job and come back in a year or two to her current employer if she wants to move up a pay grade -- which is like some tech companies -- but slower moving and lower paying.)

- Many facilities are run entirely on foreign staff (the H2-B visa allows that). And many nurses are imported from the Philippines.

* https://clipboardhealth.com

* https://www.nursing.upenn.edu/nhhc/workforce-issues/where-di...

* https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000008158650/covid-...

(plug: if you're interested in this problem, we're hiring: https://culture.clipboardhealth.com)

Re: Report: 90% of nurses considering leaving the profession in the next year

#550

Post by screye »

Not to be mean, but 'leave nursing' and then what ?

Nursing is a well paying middle-class job without a lot of transferable skills to other professions. Don't say programming. It isn't the solution to everything. Other low-entry-barrier jobs pay much less and have exploitation problems of their own. For a lot of middle class families, dual income is essential to maintain their lifestyle. So SAHM is not an option. Nursing has clearly gone through a rough 2 years, but I suspect that things are going back to normal now. Why leave now ?

> High patient-to-nurse staffing ratios

This bit is confusing me. If supply-demand is in the Nurse's favor, then don't they get more leverage on what QOL and wages they can demand ? It is not like they can fire a senior nurse on low pay, when new nurses are harder to find and demand higher wages. I know that the nurses refusing work and resulting deaths has bad optics, but it doesn't look like hospitals have a lot of leverage right now.

> Administrative burden and manual tasks

Sounds like an opportunity for a startup to disrupt the space. But, the jaded side of me thinks that the startup will fail due to insufficient political leverage with hospitals/insurance/law-makers.

> health IT

Keep calling it health IT and the problems will never be solved. Solving hard problems needs reframing of the resources dedicated to it. When tech workers are seen as assets and not cost-centers, these problems will solve themselves.

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