Bridging the Nursing Skills Gap by Better Equipping New Grads

The U.S. healthcare industry, marked by chronic nursing shortages, is at a critical point. The market for qualified nurses is highly competitive — and poised to be even more so as the number Americans in need of healthcare services continues to rise.

Although baccalaureate nursing program entry-level enrollment went up more than 15 percent over the last five years, according to a recent report published by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, many health systems lack the time and resources to onboard and train new nursing graduates. Often these systems are forced to draw from a small pool of qualified nurses, all while nothing is being done to grow the pool itself.

The shortage of healthcare professionals is compounded by the fact that the healthcare sector contributed nearly 400,000 jobs to the economy in 2015 alone, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The imperative is on the healthcare industry to address the current skills gap on its own behalf, and for the benefit of millions of Americans in need of quality patient care.

As a leader in the healthcare staffing industry, that is why I advocate on behalf of Parallon’s Specialty Training Apprenticeship for Registered Nurses (StaRN) Program. It is helping more than 150 healthcare facilities across the country get the increasing number of qualified nurses they need to deliver care to a growing patient population. StaRN provides intensive post-graduate education for recent nursing graduates, including comprehensive didactic training, a robust simulation experience and a hands-on clinical preceptorship. Upon completion of the program, graduates are equipped with the knowledge and skill to begin their career.

The StaRN program is on track to educate more than 2,500 nurses this year, helping healthcare staffing industry thought leaders take ownership of the problem and work to proactively bridge the ever-growing nursing skills gap.