Nurse Practitioner Demand in the United States
The United States in serious trouble, no matter what the politicians are saying on television. This great nation continues to stagger under the burden of a health care system that is in itself in serious need of some medical attention. Not only are there not enough nurses to fill available jobs, soon there won’t be enough doctors to go around either. Statisticians predict that there will continue to be an increase in demand for physicians, as well as other licensed and qualified medical personnel.
Trained and licensed nurse practitioners are one way to fill the gap. Nurse practitioners can do a lot of the things physicians traditionally did, such as perform examinations, prescribe treatment methods, and medications. A nurse practitioner can also order and read X-rays as well as a variety of other tests too.
This simple graph illustrates how the demand for licensed nurse practitioners has risen over the last four years between 2006 and 2010. This information reflects the demand for nurse practitioners in the state of Texas. Texas is only one state of many, and although there weren’t graphs available for every one, it is hoped that with this illustration, you start to get the picture of just how big a shortage there is.
Statistics say that there will be an increasing problem with supply and demand when it comes to health care. There will continue to be shortages in available nurses and physicians, it is also estimated that we will be about 150,000 doctors short come the year 2015. This is a grave problem, it is also a problem that more trained and qualified nurse practitioners can help alleviate.
There are over 3 million nurses employed in the United States. It is estimated that there will be another 1 million job openings in nursing next year. Nursing is one of the top professions listed as having the most job openings. It is estimated the demand for qualified and trained nurses will increase until at least the year 2025. There are a few reasons for this. One is that a lot of nurses that are currently employed are older women, who plan to retire in the next ten or so years.
The other reason for this glaring shortage is simple. More people need quality health care than ever before. It it estimated that the population of the United States will reach 350 billion in the next fifteen years. That certainly is a lot of people that will need quality health care.
Nursing schools are trained qualified nurses as we speak. But they are restrained by budget limits, and can only admit a certain number of students. Nursing schools polled said that combined they turned away an estimated sixty thousand nursing school candidates. We obviously need to expand the educational opportunities these talented nurses get. We are going to need them.