Texas Nursing Workforce Shortage Coalition

Fort Worth, TX

5/7/2009

By: Ana Asensio, TCU Schieffer School of Journalism

Seeking to overcome the serious nursing shortage, the Texas Nursing Workforce Shortage Coalition, a partnership of businesses and health care e and educational organizations, wants Texas’ financial support to help increase the number of registered nurses.

According to the latest report from the Texas Center for Nursing Workforce Studies, last year the demand for registered nurses in Texas exceeded supply by 22,000. With the fast-growing population, the state will require more nurses. If no significant increase in funding is done to boost the number of registered nurses within the next two years, by 2020 Texas will be short by 70,000 registered nurses.

The solution, requested this year by the Texas Nursing Workforce Shortage Coalition, is for the 2009 Texas Legislature to provide an additional $60 million to double the number of registered nurse graduates by 2013. To help balance the supply and demand of registered nurses, the coalition believes the money will help increase the number of faculty members in nursing schools, and provide financial aid to qualified applicants. By increasing the faculty, the coalition estimates the number of nursing graduates can double to 13,000 by 2013.

In the past couple of years, the Texas Legislature has allocated some money for nursing education that helped increase the number of registered nurses. Statistics indicate, in 2007 there were 55 percent more registered nurses than in 2001. However, despite the Legislature’s previous investments in nursing education, the current supply needed exceeds the number of graduates in 2007.

Representing the Texas Nursing Workforce Shortage Coalition, Dan Stultz, President and CEO of the Texas Hospital Association, said in a news conference earlier this year; “We know that’s a lot of money, especially under the current budget situation. But we also know that if the Legislature doesn’t make this investment now, Texas will never be able to close the supply-demand gap.”

TCU’s Harris College of Nursing and Health Sciences has implemented several programs to help increase the number of nurse graduates. Each containing different benefits, all three programs are part of the solution for the nursing shortage.

The first program is the accelerated bachelor’s of science in nursing degree program. Admitting 40 students per year, this program is designed to allow students to complete their Bachelors of Science in Nursing degree in 15 months. According to statistics from the TCU Harris College Magazine, the baccalaureate program graduated 100 students in 2007 and 124 in 2008.
The second program, the Masters of Science in Nursing, is an online degree program with a major in nursing education. It is designed for working nurses who want to prepare themselves to be nurse educators in schools of nursing. The third program, the Academic Excellence Program, or ACE, is designed to assist students to be successful in the nursing major and graduate with a BSN. It provides such services as tutoring, and improvement of study skills and test-taking skills.

Paulette Burns, dean of Harris College of Nursing and Health Sciences, said TCU’s programs have already increased the number of nurses in the Texas workforce.

“Programs like the online graduate program, ACE, and the accelerated BSN at TCU are an attempt to get educators and practitioners into the field as quickly as possible,” she said.