Colorado nursing schools are turning away students in the midst of a national nurse shortage because there aren’t enough instructors.
If nothing is done, the faculty shortfall is expected to worsen as more nurse instructors retire, leaving hospitals and clinics understaffed, according to a first-of-its-kind report released Tuesday.
Colorado’s shortage of nursing faculty at its two-year nursing schools is three times the national average, and the shortage at four-year schools is nearly double the national average, the study by the Colorado Center for Nursing Excellence found.
“We have a number of people who have extremely high teaching loads,” said Patricia Moritz, dean of the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center nursing school.
Moritz, who characterized the shortage at CU as severe, said she has 15 unfilled faculty positions and hasn’t been able to fill any of them during the past three years.
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Schools cash-strapped by recent cuts in higher education funding can’t compete with the higher salaries – $10,000 to $20,000 more on average – and signing bonuses hospitals and other private health care providers offer experienced nurses. Meanwhile, hordes of new students attracted to the rising pay of nursing jobs are flooding admissions offices, said Linda Forkner, who oversees health-care education for Colorado’s 13 community colleges.
Ultimately, nursing schools’ inability to expand means patients get care from overworked nurses in understaffed hospitals and clinics, she said.
“Instead of being taken care of by a nurse with three patients, you’re being taken care of by a nurse who has six patients,” Forkner said.
Colorado nursing schools’ lack of qualified instructors led more than 2,600 applicants to be turned away from nursing programs in Colorado in 2003, Tuesday’s study found.
The state’s nursing shortage is estimated at 11 percent. That gap is predicted to nearly triple, to 30 percent, by 2020 if schools can’t bolster faculty ranks.
Additionally, schools are finding it increasingly difficult to place nursing students in clinical rotations at Colorado hospitals, said Sue Carparelli, chief executive of the Colorado Center for Nursing Excellence.
There are simply too many students and not enough instructors with time to teach. So schools have turned to nursing homes, outpatient surgery centers and other alternative training sites, she said.
In part, this has led to big differences in the quality of education at Colorado nursing schools. Recent graduates seeking nursing positions at Denver- area hospitals often want to enroll in post-graduate residency programs before they feel comfortable practicing alone, said Sonja Classen, nurse recruiter at Presbyterian/St. Luke’s Medical Center.
“They look at, ‘How will the hospital support me as a new grad?”‘ Classen said.
But even on the private side, capacity is an issue: Presbyterian/St. Luke’s residency program is currently full.
Staff writer Marsha Austin can be reached at 303-820-1242 or maustin@denverpost.com.
