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A recent study from the Florida Center for Nursing, the state entity responsible for reporting on nurse supply, demand and education in Florida, found nurse attrition continues to be a major problem for the state.
 Leaders across Florida have worked to increase nurse supply in anticipation of a looming nursing shortage that could cripple the state's healthcare system. Though Florida gained more than 27,000 RNs over the past 2 years, nearly 60 percent of this gain was erased by losses to the RN workforce - resulting in a net gain of only about 11,000 RNs.
Turnover Costs
"This is a concern for Florida because there are significant costs, both in terms of patient safety and economic costs, when we continue to have such considerable levels of turnover," said Mary Lou Brunell, MSN, RN, the center's executive director. "At the facility level, we found the cost of nurse turnover exceeded $1.4 billion for just one year in 2006-2007. I would imagine that nurse employers are feeling the strain of turnover costs even more in this economic recession. The cost of vast numbers of nurses leaving Florida's nurse workforce is incalculable."
Losses to the LPN workforce were even more dramatic, with a net gain of only about 28 percent of the total gains to the LPN supply. Florida is one of the only states to report on the LPN workforce, as national models lack the ability to report on LPNs.
"The results were especially surprising at a time when nurse workforce participation rates, defined as the percentage of licensed nurses actually working in the field of nursing, are at historic highs," said Jennifer Nooney, the center's lead researcher. "The gains we did see were almost entirely because of new nurses added to the supply, not decreased attrition. Our reports have consistently demonstrated that we cannot address the nursing shortage without improving the retention of nurses and I think the results here make that message loud and clear. If even a severe economic recession did not significantly reduce turnover, it is not a market issue. We need to do more to improve the work environment for nurses."
Florida's Shortage Persists
In February, the center released reports on employer demand for nurses as well as nurse education program capacity. The reports found that Florida's nursing education programs continued to turn away vast numbers of qualified applicants while employers also forecasted considerable growth in nursing positions through 2011.
The center's findings continue to show that the nursing shortage in Florida persists given that more than 40 percent of Florida's nurses are approaching retirement age within the next 10 years and there are not enough younger nurses to replace them. As the economic recovery leads to the return of Florida's traditionally high rates of population growth, and Florida's population continues to age at a more rapid rate than national averages, workforce planners expect demand for nurses to soar. Resolving Florida's nursing shortage will require a multi-pronged approach, including interventions to increase the production of new nurses, improve the work environment to retain existing nurses, and redesign work to accommodate the older nurse.
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