During the 1970s, baby boomers flooded the job market. Because of limited opportunities, many women became either teachers or nurses. By 2010, the flood of new workers will dwindle to about 10 percent of what it was back in the 1970s, says Trudy Knoepke-Campbell, director of work force planning for HealthEast. Women, who historically have formed the backbone of the nursing profession, now have far more career opportunities than they did in the past. This boosts workloads and stress levels among nursing staff.
Registered nurses have far more career choices now than they did a generation ago.
As a result, many RNs have abandoned patient care and work instead on research, head hospital departments or work for large managed care companies or in corporate human resources divisions. One of the other legs involves ensuring that nurses in hospitals do nursing. The third leg involves the environment of care, Disch said. With managed care, we lost all the give. When the census goes up, there's no one to pull in to help.