Pennsylvania Nursing and Healthcare Schools

Severe workforce shortages in Pennsylvania are threatening the State's hospital's fundamental promises to the community of always being open at full capacities to accommodate and cater to the community's health care needs. There are significant vacancy rates in almost all health care professions but nurses, like all other States in the country, top the list in Pennsylvania.

The short term and long term challenges facing the health care workforce are addressed by the State with the magnitude they deserve. The State together with other stakeholders is developing action oriented strategies that will address the nursing shortage once and for all. Those strategies include:

Working towards retaining more health care providers in the health care professions. This can only be a success by implementing lucrative salary schemes and creating conducive working environments for the care providers.
Increasing the capacity and the standard of Pennsylvania's nursing education systems.
Addressing the needs of workers who offer direct care to patients. Such include improving benefits and wages, supporting better supervision, providing incentives, improving the quality of care and promoting training and credentialing.
Magnet recognition programs

The State so far has been able to define the gap, and draw a line between the supply and demand of health care providers. The shortage of nurses has prompted creative solutions. For instance, stake holders have set programs that help educate disadvantaged individuals with poor backgrounds who would otherwise not have been able to pursue a nursing education career.

Thanks to technology, working nurses can undertake web based degrees as they continue working. At the same time, the State offers educational options that work best for working class groups, especially those working in communities that can't allow them leave to go back to school. This is in light to the efforts of the State of Pennsylvania to have a world class, 21st century workforce that would be competent enough to compete in the global economy.

The consequences of the nursing shortage across Pennsylvania are far reaching, not only for financial feasibility and profitability, but also for the delivery of proper care. The State is doing everything at its disposal to combat this. For example, aging nurse population is one of the major contributors of the current shortage. The State is investing in new technologies and ergonomic standards to prevent back injuries, which is the most common injury in the work place. The new implementations provide assistance with lifting of patients; daily care and other activities that require physical efforts.

The responsibility and accountability of the State of Pennsylvania to lead the nursing profession, and other health care careers into sought-after and rewarding careers in addition to leading it into distinction, is mirrored in the salaries of its care providers. You are sure to get a package that works best for you.