The COVID-19 pandemic heightened awareness of numerous challenges within the U.S. healthcare system, prominently featuring a significant shortage of hospital nurses. Job vacancy rates surged nearly 70% from 2020 to 2021, underscoring a crisis that has persisted for decades. Despite a faster growth rate of hospital registered nurse (RN) Several factors have influenced the nursing demand landscape from 2010 to 2019. An aging population and increasing prevalence of chronic conditions drove healthcare utilization, leading to heightened demands for nursing services. Moreover, the Affordable Care Act improved access to care while encouraging a shift to outpatient services, further straining the existing nursing workforce. Although the RN workforce grew steadily over the years, constrained nursing education capacity has limited the influx of new nurses. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated these challenges, resulting in a spike in exits from the profession and a marked increase in hospital RN vacancies. The continued demand for hospital RNs is anticipated to persist, with projections indicating a need for 40,000 to 55,000 additional RNs annually through 2027. If current trends in exits remain unchanged, the nurse shortage could escalate to a staggering deficit of 150,000 to 400,000 FTEs by 2027, necessitating urgent and strategic action from healthcare organizations and stakeholders to address this impending crisis.
