The nursing industry has been growing rapidly in recent years and stands poised to grow even more in the decade to come. This trend can be traced to several factors working in concert; shifting patient demographics, population growth, and the changing landscape of nursing due to regulatory shifts and technological advancements all contribute.
As medical technology advances, patients live longer—which means more medical personnel necessary to care for them over time. Not only does an individual live longer, requiring more medical attention over their added years, those additional years come at the cost of extensive medical treatments, multiplying the care necessary. In other words, each extra year of life expectancy adds more nursing jobs than each year prior, and will for the foreseeable future.
There are two key factors tied to population growth to consider. First, the simple math: the population in the United States continues to grow, and thus so does the number of nurses necessary to care for that population. Perhaps more importantly, as the Baby Boomer generation grows older there is accordingly a massive increase in the number of nurses necessary to treat, care for, and assist them. Just as they created booms in various other industries earlier in their lives, this generation will create a significant boom in the nursing industry in their twilight years.
Due in part to a shortage of doctors in many areas of the United States, nurses have accordingly been granted expanded responsibilities in many fields. This makes nursing more appealing, more valuable, and more necessary across the country. As healthcare access expands despite the doctor shortage, medical facilities looking to keep up with the growth of the medical industry will look for more nurses, not more doctors—because hiring doctors to keep up simply won’t be feasible.
Medical institutions across the country have seen the numbers on patient outcomes as they relate to caretaker/patient ratios—and moved accordingly. Currently, many facilities operate with a subpar number of nurses. To fill that gap, many newly trained nurses will be necessary. Add in additional research on the consequences of overworking medical staff, and—perhaps more importantly, in some cases—the liability that overworked nurses may create, and it’s easy to see why many healthcare facilities are looking to expand their nursing staff.
The Affordable Care Act and other health care reform efforts in recent years have expanded access to medical care across the country, meaning many facilities need more nurses than they’ve ever needed before—especially in areas with a high proportion of low-income families to treat. Consider, too, that low-income individuals have not yet seen the same increase in life expectancy that middle class and upper-class individuals have. Meeting the healthcare needs of more patients living longer lives will necessarily expand the need for nursing in the years to come—whatever specific form of health care reform wins out.
There are many new technologies growing to maturity in the medical industry, and many of these require specially trained personnel to manage. In many cases, this means people with skills relevant to the technology at hand and the medical training to implement that technology efficiently—RNs with a tech background stand to gain immensely from this growth area. As telemedicine, prescriptive analytics programs, and similar technology grows in prominence, RNs with broad skill sets will only become more valuable.
If you’d like to learn more about the potential growth of the nursing industry, specific areas of interest in the years to come, or how to start training to become a Registered Nurse, visit Athena Career Academy today.