Health care leaders seek $59M to ease nursing shortage

Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2007

Health care leaders seek $59M to ease nursing shortage

Health care leaders issue call for public, private money for education

by Kevin J. Shay | Staff Writer

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Maryland health care leaders last week called for more money for nursing teachers, education programs and classrooms to help fill what they say is a critical shortage in nurses.

The plan would cost about $34 million the first year and $25 million the following year, Cal Pierson, president of the Maryland Hospital Association, said during a news conference. After an initial investment of public and private funds, the plan would pay for itself through additional nursing students and savings from a multimillion-dollar fund that goes to personnel agencies to provide nurses to cover vacancies, he said.

‘‘A timely response to this call to action can produce immediate tangible results, starting as early as 2009,” said Pierson, who plans to retire in July.

Without any action, the state faces a nursing shortfall of 10,000 by 2016, he said.

The plan calls for an increase of 1,800 first-year nursing students beginning in 2009 and 360 additional faculty members.

‘‘Ending the nursing shortage is crucial to the public health,” Janet Allan, dean of the University of Maryland School of Nursing, said in a statement. ‘‘A solution is in sight, and it is our responsibility to act now.”

Nurse vacancies in Maryland reached a high of 15.6 percent in 2001 before falling due to more recruiting and training programs, according to a survey by the hospital association. But the vacancy rate increased to 13 percent in 2006 from 10 percent in 2005.

The shortage of physical and occupational therapists is even higher than for nurses, with a vacancy rate of more than 15 percent last year.

A group of 27 academic and heath care leaders worked on the plan. The hospital association, University System of Maryland, Governor’s Workforce Investment Board and others have committed to seek the needed funding. An implementation committee led by Pierson and Beth Anne Batturs, director of the Department of Nursing at Anne Arundel Community College, has been formed.