Between 1986 and 1997, the number of associate-degree nurses who graduated from BSN programs rose from 7,400 a year to more than 11,000 annually, according to AACN surveys. Thirty-five percent of respondents in 1997 predicted that any staffing cuts would be less than 5 percent, up from 21 percent who responded so in 1995. Hospitals aren't saving the dollars they thought they would save. That seems to be reversing and some hospitals are back up to a level close to 70 percent RNs. The profession holds to the view that there are appropriate places for UAPs to safely assist, not replace, nurses with such duties as stocking supplies or transporting patients for tests, says Beth Mancini of Parkland Hospital.
Some facilities require UAPs to be certified, but others are looking to students to assure quality.
Our nursing students are hired as nurse techs at a local hospital. Similar programs are in place in Minnesota and South Dakota. As employers scramble to hire the nurses they need, colleges are struggling, too, to boost undergraduate enrollments. The Texas Medical Center hospitals are urging schools to increase their BSN classes, UT's Patricia Starck notes. In a recruitment drive this winter, BC's nursing school wrote to high-school students who checked off nursing as one of their career choices on the PSAT exam, inviting them to a spend a weekend on campus meeting with faculty.