To everyone's surprise... a relatively short one...
I read an interesting
article and
info-graphic suggesting that there will actually be a surplus of nurses by 2025. The article and info-graphic both posit, however, that the distribution of nurses will be uneven, with shortages remaining in high-population-density parts of the United States.
What is, perhaps, more interesting is that these same documents posit that a knowledge gap will start to occur as nurses who entered the profession in the mid-1970's and 1980's begin to retire. The concern appears to be that such retiring will likely occur in a short period of time, and result in a nursing workforce that lacks the accumulated experience and knowledge currently possessed by those who will retire.
A colleague of mine, in reviewing these documents, indicated that even today nursing leadership is concerned about this trend and may foresee negative clinical outcomes.
The question that occurs to me as I think about this becomes "What could we be doing to address this?". Are there changes to medication management practice that we could facilitate that would help reduce the impact of this "knowledge gap"? Is there a role for us to be engaging in nursing education? What opportunities might there be for pharmacy practice if this turns out to be true?
Food for thought...
Dennis A. Tribble, Pharm. D., FASHP
Ormond Beach, FL 32174
DATdoc@aol.com
The thoughts expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employer or of ASHP.