HJNO Jan/Feb 2024

46 JAN / FEB 2024 I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF NEW ORLEANS NURSING COLUMN NURSING Nursing and Healthcare Leaders Tackle NURSINGWORKFORCE CRISIS ON NOV. 9, 2023, healthcare professionals from across the U.S. came together in Chi- cago to address three specific challenges to tackling the nursing workforce short- age in the United States: staffing, nursing wellness, and workplace safety. This me- dia event was the result of findings from the 2022 National Nursing Workforce Survey. 1 This survey, conducted every two years, is a collaboration between the Na- tional Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) and the National Forum of State Nursing Workforce Centers. These two groups conduct the only national-level survey focused on the entire U.S. nursing workforce. The survey generates data on the supply of registered nurses (RNs) and licensed practical nurses/licensed voca- tional nurses (LPNs/LVNs). These data are crucial in providing information on emerging nursing issues for 2022, princi- pally the impact of the COVID-19 pandem- ic on the nursing workforce. I will first summarize the challenges presented by each of the three panels and then summarize solutions that were presented by all the experts. The staffing panel included Eileen Fry-Bowers, PhD, dean and professor, University of San Francisco School of Nursing; Karen Lyon, PhD, Louisiana State Board of Nursing CEO; Beverly Malone, PhD, National League for Nursing CEO; and Lavonia Thomas, DNP, nursing informatics officer at MD Anderson Cancer Center and was moderated by Maryann Alexander, PhD, chief officer of nursing regulation at NCSBN. The challenges identified by all the participants included a national nursing exodus of 100,000 nurses due to COVID-19 and an extraordinary increase in workload during COVID leading to nursing complaints of fatigue, burnout, and feeling emotionally drained and used up. More than 1,000,000 RNs and LPNs report plans to leave the profession by 2027, with 25% of those having less than ten years’ experience. We have never experienced this type of loss of young nurses. The second panel addressed nursing wellness. The panel included KimEsquibel, PhD, Maine State Board of Nursing executive director; Debbie Hatmaker, PhD, ANA chief nursing officer; Evelyn Poczatek, director of strategic initiatives, Office of the Chief Wellness Officer, Rush University; and Victoria Priola, PsyD, psychologist with Powers Wellness and Consulting. The challenges identified by these experts included burnout as a result of cumulative stressors in the environment, inadequate staffing, workplace violence, mandatory overtime, and documentation burden. Poczatek acknowledged that their nurses were tired fromworking in an emergent environment for several years. This has affected patient safety in an environment where we are seeing increased errors in patient care. Additionally, Priola offered that it isn’t helpful to refer to nurses as “heroes” and “angels.” This infers superhuman traits to nurses and isn’t realistic. In fact, she argued that it is actually dangerous in that it infers that nurses have to be self-sacrificing to a level that actually jeopardizes their own health. The final panel addressed workplace safety. Expert panelists included Kristin Benton, DNP, Texas Board of Nursing executive director; Rep. Joe Courtney, Connecticut 2nd District; Gary Lescallett, OSHA Assistant Regional Administrator; Kathleen Poindexter, PhD, interim associate dean of nursing academic affairs at Michigan State University; and Tim Tull, system chief of safety and security at Rochester Regional Health. Challenges identified included increasing frequency of workplace violence incidents more than any other profession or occupation. Factors driving that increased frequency include behavioral health issues and the opioid epidemic. Other factors include increasing incidence of high-risk patients engaging in physically violent behavior and lack of training for healthcare workers to deal with violent behavior. Nurses are really not equipped to respond to acts of violence.TheBureauof Labor Statistics has reported that healthcare workers account for 73% of all non-fatal workplace injuries/ illnesses due to violence. Registered nurses are disproportionately affected by these violent incidents, including biting, punching, scratching, weapon attacks, and even sexual assaults. Solutions to these problems are sum- marized in the following graphic prepared by NCSBN 2 .