Nurses from 10 west Michigan counties will discuss ways to combat a nursing shortage at a meeting hosted by Grand Valley State University's Kirkhof School of Nursing.
The Nursing Shortage Summit is from 9 a.m.-noon on Thursday, December 7, at the University Club in the DeVos Center, 401 W. Fulton St.
Karen Dunlap, coordinator of continuing nursing education at GVSU, said nurses from academic institutions, hospitals and nursing homes are expected.
First, there are not enough nurses to fill all the open spots now, but a bigger shortage is projected for 2010, when retirements will be heavy, she said.
Peter Buerhaus, associate dean at Vanderbilt University's School of Nursing, is an expert in nursing workforce statistics. Among his findings:
¿ By 2010, about 40 percent of U.S. nurses will be over age 50;
¿ Number of working registered nurses under age 30 dropped from 419,000 to 246,000 during 1983-1998;
¿ Projected nursing shortage to reach 400,000 in 2020, when baby boomers will retire and health care demands will increase.
Gay Landstrom, vice president of patient care services at Muskegon Mercy General Health Partners, helped plan the summit and said area health care providers need to take proactive steps to address this pending crisis.
Here in west Michigan, we have so much in common including patient demographics and patient care, it makes sense to attack this problem together, she said. If we handled it individually, we would fail miserably.
Topics to be addressed include recruiting and retaining nurses and developing interest in the profession among elementary and middle school students.
