The Niles Star

As workforce ages, health care jobs in demand

Nursing staff at the Birthplace at Lakeland Hospital assist in the birth of Elliot and Ema Legus on Dec. 15, 2009. (File photo)

By JESSICA SIEFF

Niles Daily Star

Editor’s Note: This is the first of a two-part series looking at the nursing shortage. The second story will print on Wednesday.

As a career, nursing is nothing short of iconic.

Some of nursing’s earliest origins can be traced back to 17th century France. Leaf through the history books and one can find their mark made especially in war time, on the front lines of World War I or later, on the edge of history during the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Today they are a friendly face around every corner in every hospital, in doctors’ offices, in busy inner city clinics, disaster zones and third-world countries.

And in Michigan, as well as the rest of the United States, nurses are in high demand as the country faces what some are considering an unprecedented and alarming shortage.

Aging population, workforce factors

Just one year ago, the Michigan Center for Nursing published a profile report on the state’s nursing workforce that took a closer look at the factors behind the shortage and what the state will have to do as a large portion of nurses prepares to exit the field — and a fresh, capable crop of caregivers is ready to take their place.

“In 2002, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) projected that there would be a 1.7 percent yearly increase in the demand for registered nurses and a 29 percent shortage in the national supply of registered nurses by 2020,” the report stated.

“I have seen cyclic shortages, brief shortages but this is the first time the industry has seen long term shortages,” said Dr. Delores Jackson, nursing program director at Lake Michigan College (LMC), who has been working in the industry for 30 years.

Community colleges like LMC and Southwestern Michigan College (SMC) are battling the shortage with competitive nursing programs that incorporate hands-on, clinical training and options for RN and LPN education.

The nursing shortage is very real,” Jackson said.

Though some communities are seeing the effects of a strapped nursing staff, southwest Michigan, Jackson said, has been fortunate.

“The community is not experiencing a serious shortage as in some surrounding states,” she said.

Considering the potential results of not enough nurses, that’s good news.

“Having sufficient nurses in our community equates to better and safer health care,” she said.

Several factors have been attributed to a nationwide shortage. Those factors primarily include an aging population, aging workforce, lack of college students taking interest in the field and elements of job dissatisfaction, each of which are mentioned in the 2009 report.

As more experienced nurses edge closer to retirement and the baby boomer generations gets older, the need for health care workers increases.

And the economy has also taken its toll.

There are the laid-off workers who have lost their health care benefits, the employed who see their insurance costs and co-pays steadily increase and the patients who see steeper bills as their physicians and area hospitals increase the cost for care.

Those who simply can’t afford it are waiting longer to go to the doctor, leaving them in greater need when they do.

“It’s only going to get worse over the next decade,” Jackson said. “And the reason for that is because of the aging nursing force, basically.”

At LMC, Jackson said, there has been an increase in enrollment for the nursing program.

“We have increased enrollment 25 percent in the last three years,” she said.

The field is competitive and the job can be demanding.

“It’s something you’ve got to want to do in order to be successful,” Jackson said.

Colleges like SMC and LMC seem to be stepping up to the plate and offering programs that yield results — placing graduates in much needed working positions.

“We just graduated close to 80 graduates in 2009,” Jackson said. “And that was approximately 60 RNs and 20 LPNs.”

And of that class, Jackson said the school can boast a 100 percent pass rate of the state board exam.

“Our nurses are acquiring positions not only in this community but in other hospitals in surrounding communities,” Jackson said, including South Haven, South Bend, Elkhart and Kalamazoo.

According to the Michigan Center for Nursing’s report, “the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that ‘the number of new jobs created for RNs will increase by 27.3 percent between 2002 and 2012 from 2.29 million to 2.91 million … and that total job openings due to growth and net replacements will result in 1.1 million job openings for RNs by 2012.’”

The numbers, however, are only part of the story. Behind each available position is an eager nurse just out of school ready to take on a new career and the one who has lived through the trials and tribulations of the job not far behind.

Faces of nursing: the second stringer

At 35 years old, Nikki Degroff of Paw Paw owns her own business with her husband and works as a paramedic with the Paw Paw Quick Response Team.

And as a student in SMC’s transitional program, especially for paramedics who are interested in becoming registered nurses, Degroff is the face of a new generation of nurses, men and women who begin secondary or sometimes even third careers inside hospital halls.

“The thing that drew me to it first was the stability and the health care benefits,” Degroff said.

As the demand for nurses increases in Michigan and across the country, colleges offering nursing programs are seeing more and more students filing into the classroom who are in search of just that — a stable job with the benefit of health insurance.

“What we are getting now, of course, a lot of people are on second careers,” because so many industries have lost jobs, Jackson said.

Jackson estimates 10 to 15 percent of LMC’s students are focused on a second career.

For Degroff, SMC’s transitional program was ideal. The program treats its students as “non-traditional students” considering their prior training as paramedics.

“I’ve always wanted to work with OB (obstetrics) or pediatrics, with babies,” she said. “That’s kind of what I’m leaning toward.”

Degroff has been enjoying the clinical and hands-on portion of her training at SMC and she said she’s hearing plenty of talk around the hospitals she’s in about the need for nurses now.

“A lot of hospitals, from what I’m gathering are, they’re always looking for nursing students,” she said. “They’re always looking for nurses. There is a demand.”

They are also looking for nurses armed with a bachelor’s degree, Degroff said.

For those interested in nursing as a career, getting an associate’s degree is definitely a step in the right direction, as Jackson said. Based on placement, those nurses could see a salary around $50,000 per year.

The demand for nurses with bachelor’s degrees could simply be because of the added benefit for employers of those nurses with higher education or in some cases hospitals, clinics and doctors’ offices are beginning to look at the benefits of hiring specialized nurses.

According to the Michigan Center for Nursing, specialized nurses have been viewed as an added benefit to those facilities because it means those employers can provide higher quality care.

Those specialized positions just add to the diversity that is another draw to those interested in the career of nursing.

“It is so diverse, you’re going to find something that you’ll absolutely love,” Degroff said.

Expecting to graduate from SMC in May 2011, Degroff is hoping to land a position at Lakeland Hospital in Niles in the OB department.

In a class of 11 students taking the transitional program, she said everyone is interested in a different field.

“Almost all of us are going for something different,” she said.

Her advice to those interested in pursuing a career in nursing is to “absolutely do it,” she said. “There’s always a demand; everyone’s always going to need nurses. There are so many different options that are out there.”

But be diligent, she added.

“Perseverance,” Degroff said when asked what one might need to keep in mind when it comes to the course load and demands of any college nursing program. “You just have to stick to it and keep going. The reward at the end will definitely pay off. All of your hard work will definitely pay off in the end.”