‘It’s a big deal’: Nurse shortage impacts rising demand in North Idaho

The Nursing staff report 2024 According to the Idaho Nursing Center, even with an increase in the number of graduates statewide, there just doesn’t seem to be enough nurses in Idaho to meet the need.

Cyndy Donato of Kootenai Health said, “Idaho’s nursing landscape faces challenges due to a growing population and increasing retirements.”

Looking at the big picture for hiring practices across the agency, Donato said Kootenai Health is focusing its efforts on long-term staff retention and reducing the number of travel nurses.

In the new nursing report, the workforce as of June 2024 was 22,845 registered nurses.

While this has increased by 1,708 registered nurses since 2022, it still does not meet the state’s health care requirements.

Approximately 7% of RNs and LPNs in Idaho have also reached retirement age, further impacting workforce availability.

In previous reporting by The Press, NIC President Nick Swayne noted that issues in recruiting and retaining faculty in the nursing program are a major factor in the ability to expand to meet the need for nurses locally and statewide .

While NIC has the space to expand nursing cohorts from 40 to 60 students per semester, the college requires one nursing instructor per 10 students, but that staffing target is difficult to address due to current compensation rates.

Erlene Pickett, dean of nursing and health care professions at NIC, said applications have finally started to increase after nursing programs took a hit during the early pandemic challenges.

“We are producing a lot of nurses and they still need more and we have almost double the number of qualified students than we have room for,” Pickett said.

After recently sending out acceptance letters to students, she said this most recent cohort is one of the strongest the program has seen since pre-COVID.

Within the clinical part of the nursing program, NIC also tries to prevent overburdening of local hospitals.

“There just aren’t enough clinical placements available to support that model, so we’re trying to think of more creative ways to provide students with a meaningful clinical experience,” Pickett said.

NIC has formed a group to determine how to meet student health care needs in a health ecosystem recovering from the turmoil of the past four years.

“The nurses are tired,” Pickett said.

To try to bridge the needs of instructors, the college and Governor Brad Little have requested an increase in workers’ compensation for instructors to address staffing shortages.

Mike Baker, CEO of Heritage Health, grew up watching his mother work as a kidney transplant nurse and has a good relationship with people in the field. He expressed gratitude for programs like NICs, which refer new nursing graduates to local health care providers.

“There were too many people who left the field too quickly and it breaks my heart to see that. There is a better path for nursing, but we have to show it to people, that’s where we put our energy,” Baker said. “You start to see the joy in their eyes because it’s a different experience.”

Getting the number of new nurses joining the industry to better match the population they serve is something he considers a top priority.

“We’re feeling the pressure and the state needs to figure out how to fund the instructors because it’s a big problem,” Baker said.

No matter what happens, the nursing profession has always prided itself on taking care of everyone. Baker said it’s time for the health care system to extend this support back to its nurses.

“You see what they put into their work,” Baker said. ‘We have to do better for them.

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Staff writer Kaye Thornbrugh contributed to this report.