With a high demand for quality nursing staff, employers and the healthcare industry as a whole have had to become more creative to ensure that the number of staff required for the successful provision of healthcare services is met. This includes financial incentives, further education and the opportunity to enrol in a fast-track online nursing program which can enable students to enter the workforce sooner.
The demand for nurses across all areas of the healthcare sector is incredibly high. If you have been thinking about a career in healthcare or considering entering the nursing field, there has never been a better time. This article will detail some of the incentives out there for students looking to make the move to a career in nursing.
Why Is There A Shortage?
Several factors have contributed to a near-critical shortage of nurses across the industry. The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that over the next decade, there will be over 200,000 job openings per year.
An increasing aging population has had two effects on the industry. It has placed an increased demand on healthcare services in a number of areas but is also resulting in an aging workforce. The latter means that there are more nurses reaching retirement age than there are young student nurses entering the workforce.
Another factor is the lack of training centres and institutions. As the demand for nurses in the workforce has increased, educational institutions have been unable to keep up in providing the resources, space and opportunities to train enough nurses to fill the vacancies.
Nursing is a stressful job and, as a result, is a profession with a historically high turnover rate. While this is nothing new for the industry, when this is combined with the other factors mentioned above it results in a challenging situation for a sector working to provide good patient care.
The recent COVID-19 pandemic cannot be ignored when discussing the shortage of nurses in the industry. The unprecedented events put a huge amount of pressure on the healthcare sector as a whole, including the frontline nursing staff. Many nurses left the profession to pursue other careers.
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What Are Educational Institutions Offering?
Many tertiary education institutions are working hard to entice students to study nursing while increasing their capacity to train those students. Many of these efforts are being backed by government assistance and funding.
Increased Admissions
Many colleges are increasing their acceptance rates during the school year as well as accepting students in the spring, summer and fall semesters to increase the number of students participating in nursing degrees.
Developing New Programs
Many institutions that had not previously offered nursing qualifications are now developing programs in order to be able to accept students interested in completing a Bachelor of Nursing.
Online Programs
The recent increase in online educational opportunities has also resulted in a number of flexible, affordable online options for students looking to obtain nursing qualifications.
Partnerships
Many institutions have developed partnership programs with healthcare service providers and, as a way of incentivising students, offer students the choice of placement if they agree to an employment contract once qualified.
Flexible Timing
There are now a number of options for students when it comes to the timing of completing a course. Many choose to complete their qualification on a part-time basis. This option together with the three intakes most universities are offering allows greater flexibility for students.
Shortened Timeframe
The addition of accelerated nursing programs enables students to obtain their qualifications more quickly. These courses work on providing the equivalent subjects and studies for students but do so on a compressed timeline, allowing students to complete the course and enter the workforce sooner.
What Other Benefits Are There For Students?
The situation that has arisen due to the nursing shortage and the creative efforts to entice students to study nursing have a number of benefits for students who are studying nursing and those who are recently qualified.
There are a number of financial incentives available that are there to assist people in entering the nursing field. These are highly appealing to a number of prospective students, particularly when we also have to consider that there is still a gender pay gap and nursing is still a female-dominated industry. These incentives include:
Scholarships: hospitals are offering scholarships in return for a term of employment upon graduation.
Reimbursement of Tuition: similarly, some hospitals are offering to reimburse a percentage of tuition payments to nurses who qualify.
Loan Forgiveness: organisations such as the National Health Service Nurse Corps have offered to pay a large percentage of student loans to nurses employed in critical areas.
Educational programs: many hospitals offer in-house training and education, in an effort to ensure they employ quality staff without the significant barrier of those students needing to pay for higher education.
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Now Is The Right Time To Enrol
Nursing is a highly demanding career but also a vocation that is highly rewarding. If you have been considering a career in nursing, then now is the right time to seek out a course that suits you and make the move. The nursing shortage together with the incentives provided by education institutions and the healthcare industry means there has never been a better time to pursue this career. If you choose to partake in a fast-track online nursing program you could be providing much-needed care for patients sooner than you think.
