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Publisher: Ohio Department of Aging
Published Date: April 27, 2006

Executive Summary

Ohio faces an immediate and future crisis in supplying healthcare facilities with nursing staff. The average age of an Ohio nurse is 47 years old, with many of these planning to retire in the next five years. To compound this, an overwhelming number of Ohioans will reach their 65th birthday in the next 25 years.

Vacancies exist in every sector of direct patient care. However, these recommendations will primarily address the shortage of nurses in Ohio. Current efforts to supply the labor pool with new nurses who will replace retiring and exiting nurses still leave a projected shortfall of over 10,000 nurses by 2020. Presently, there are about 5,000 unfilled nursing positions.

Regional initiatives are currently aligning their resources to grow the pool of nurses, and as such, their successes are mentioned throughout the narrative. The goal of these recommendations is to capitalize on these regional successes, and create opportunities for more regions to increase their capacity to train more nurses.

The Jobs Cabinet Healthcare Workforce Shortage Committee (Committee) has identified critical areas that if addressed, would significantly increase the labor pool of nurses for the present and support sustainable capacity building for future needs. These are the goals, strategies, and recommendations presented in this report:

• A Attract Ohioans to the Healthcare Workforce
1. Increase Youth Interested in and entering into healthcare career pathways
2. Provide Funding for Communities to Address Healthcare Workforce Needs
• Educate Ohioans at All Levels Needed to Secure a Strong Healthcare Workforce Now and Into the Future.
1. Increase the Number of Nurse Faculty
2. Increase Training Capacity of Clinical Instructors
3. Reduce Backlog of Enrolled Students and Student Candidates by Decreasing Wait Times for Courses
• Develop Ohio’s Current Healthcare Workforce to Meet Future Demand
1. Increase Low-wage Adults Entering Healthcare Through Career Pathways
2. Increase Career Progressions for Existing Nurses to Advance in Their Degrees
3. Develop a System to Assess and Address Ohio’s Healthcare Workforce
• Retain Ohioan Currently in the Healthcare Workforce
1. Increase Incumbent Healthcare Worker’s Career Progressions for Entry Level and Advanced Degrees
• Legislative/ Policy/Coordination Recommendations

The total cost to achieve these goals is $7,475,000. The total amount of resources identified to support this endeavor is $1,505,000. This amount is a total derived from multiple existing budgets. The total amount of in-kind contribution expected is $ 690,000. The total amount of funding being sought to fully implement this proposal is $5,280,000.

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