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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

#61

Post by notch656a »

chrisseaton wrote: post #20
petermcneeley wrote: post #16

Most people work for money so I would take all this with a grain of salt. If you are a RN what are you going to do if not nursing? The same applies to all fields including Physicians.

> If you are a RN what are you going to do if not nursing? You can do almost any job with almost any degree.

Being able to do it doesn't mean someone will hire you. Almost anyone may be able to become an engineer but you hardly have a prayer of being hired for a well compensated and benefited role unless you have years of experience or a (science or engineering) degree combined with internship(s).

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

#62

Post by n8cpdx »

petermcneeley wrote: post #16

Most people work for money so I would take all this with a grain of salt. If you are a RN what are you going to do if not nursing? The same applies to all fields including Physicians.

There’s a huge labor shortage, they could do just about anything and get a pretty sizable bonus to sign up. I’ve heard $20k bonus for trucking, local transit agency is offering 7.5k to sign up as a bus driver, police nationwide are desperate and the requirements for the local agency consist of any 2 year degree + being willing to be drug tested, construction industry is trying to recruit women now, etc.

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

#63

Post by JshWright »

dt3ft wrote: post #19
ghaff wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My primary care doctor dropped me a few years back. He said his solo practice couldn't handle the paperwork of having so many patients so he went to just seeing patients for his specialty. He was admittedly older and had never particularly embraced computers and so forth. (And then my new PCP retired during the pandemic.)

Isn’t there any software for solo practices out there?

Obvious bias, since I work there, but Elation Health is very focused on building EHR software that makes it possible for independent primary care providers to be successful and not have to spend hours per day doing paperwork.

https://www.elationhealth.com/

Speaking from personal experience, moonlighting as a paramedic, paperwork is a universal challenge in healthcare (I often spend more time documenting a call than the call itself took from patient contact to transfer of care to the ER). It is shockingly rare for EHRs (regardless of the speciality they focus on) to actively try to make life better for the clinician. That's a large part of why I'm at Elation for my day job; the founders (and therefore the whole company) have a ton of empathy for the doctors (and staff) we serve.

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

#64

Post by xyzzyz »

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…

> 2. Patients in COVID have become downright mean. Add this to the problems nurses have management and doctors (who are often rude and arrogant) and it's a poor culture. The quality of the environment, from a mental health standpoint, is on the decline.

Mean customers, and rude coworkers? I sympathize, but this is a reality in a lot of industries. I have no reason to believe that healthcare here is worse than average.

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

#65

Post by ghaff »

dt3ft wrote: post #19
ghaff wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My primary care doctor dropped me a few years back. He said his solo practice couldn't handle the paperwork of having so many patients so he went to just seeing patients for his specialty. He was admittedly older and had never particularly embraced computers and so forth. (And then my new PCP retired during the pandemic.)

Isn’t there any software for solo practices out there?

He was part of a hospital system so he used their software. I know nothing about medical software but my impression is that there is a huge amount of paperwork regardless involving insurance, prescriptions, testing, etc. Stuff is more integrated and electronic than it used to be but there's still a lot of manual interactions, phone calls, faxes, etc.

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

#66

Post by Ensorceled »

Victerius wrote: post #6

U.S. nursing salaries relative to average U.S. wages are above the OECD average: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/health_glance-2017-58-en... So pay isn't the problem. The U.S. is also above the OECD average for the number of nurses per 1000 population: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334515420/figure/fi... So staffing isn't the problem either. The U.S. is below the OECD average for the number of doctors…

Canadian nurses are also leaving the profession in droves for many of the same reasons ... so this might be a universal problem.

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

#68

Post by tmp_anon_22 »

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…

> This one is big for product designers.

I think this is looking at the problem wrong. The problem is that implementing positive change in these systems is impossible for reasons far outside the control of any product designer or developer currently on the team.

This software is old, has byzantine requirements, probably cut costs all over the place, and conceived in a board room without the benefit of an adequate development lifecycle or stakeholders advocating for the users.

It probably takes 3 months to move a button around, and instead of moving that button executives are having them push a feature that earns a few more million, or a feature that the customers want more then a UX improvement.

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

#69

Post by fnordpiglet »

Victerius wrote: post #6

U.S. nursing salaries relative to average U.S. wages are above the OECD average: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/health_glance-2017-58-en... So pay isn't the problem. The U.S. is also above the OECD average for the number of nurses per 1000 population: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334515420/figure/fi... So staffing isn't the problem either. The U.S. is below the OECD average for the number of doctors…

They do detail what the nurses themselves say are the problems in the article. I’m not sure I see a reason to doubt their reasons. They didn’t identify a shortage of doctors but rather a shortage of low skilled workers whose jobs they’re having to pick up in addition. Also while the population ratios might be in their favor, apparently the patient to nurse ratios aren’t. Even if they’re better than most of the world that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily happy - when you’re unhappy telling someone that there’s someone worse off doesn’t improve their situation.

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

#70

Post by reedjosh »

salt-thrower wrote: post #28
phil21 wrote: post #17

While it's anecdote, every single peer in bedside medical care I know without exception has either left the field, or has immediate plans to as soon as student loan debt is repaid. The few older medical professionals in my family are simply sticking out the last few years until they can retire early. This was generally the case prior to pandemic due to how poor the work environment has become, but the pandemic seems…

> How doctors of all professions lost their professional agency to do-nothing administrators within a generation is quite puzzling The profit model of the U.S. healthcare industry might have something to do with it. The fact that hospitals are run like businesses and have shareholders is insane to me. I know other countries' healthcare systems got hit hard by the pandemic too, but it seems like the uniquely capitalis…

If they can't throw some medication with pharma kickbacks at you, they probably won't do much at all.

My 6 month old son was put on topical steroids for a small rash on his back and the doctors solution when this turned into a progressive issue was more and stronger topical steroids.

Eventually I learned about topical steroid withdrawal, and after a hellish withdrawal period, my son has no real skin conditions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpW4VV2bsD8&t=28s

And yes, my son at ~1 year old was red and bleeding like that head to toe.

When I brought up steroid withdrawal I was rudely dismissed by multiple doctors including dermatologists.

Doctors currently have willful blinders on at a minimum, and some may be a true embodiment of evil. I hope the whole for profit medical system crashes and burns.

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