Nursing Shortage Prompts Hospitals To Beef Up Recruiting Efforts

As the nursing shortage continues, many hospitals are being forced to beef up their recruitment efforts to fill vacancies and aggressively court nurses. With a multitude of recruitment vehicles-advertisements in different states, job fairs, and even highway billboards-hospitals are also promoting flexible schedules and financial incentives to entice nurses in this "buyer's market."

According to the American Hospital Association (AHA), there are 126,000 nursing vacancies in hospitals around the country. Health industry experts predict that as baby boomers age over the next decade, this number could triple. Many states with fast-growing populations (Nevada, Texas and Florida) are spending more money on nursing schools and recruitment efforts due to the drastic need for nurses. Hospitals with understaffed wards have entered the largest recruiting frenzy in more than 10 years.

Because nursing salaries have remained rather stagnant for a decade (according to the American Nurses Association), many hospitals have initiated one-time sign-on bonuses and finder's fees. Other hospitals are offering recruits enhanced benefit and vacation packages. Many hospital administrators disagree with the current recruiting tactics-particularly with the sign-on bonuses, saying that many nurses take the money and then leave a couple of months later to get a bigger and better bonus elsewhere. Susan Bianchi-Sand, director of the country's largest nurses' union-United American Nurses-shares, "We're recruiting [nurses] into a profession that's broken. The system needs to be fixed so [nurses] not only want to come in, they want to stay."

Excerpted from "Shortage of Nurses Spurs Bidding War in Hospital Industry," by Michael Janofsky, May 28, 2002 New York Times On The Web