Group brainstorms on nursing shortage

Summit held at CSUCI


IRIS SMOOT/Acorn Newspapers NEW  IDEAS- Participants  in  the  Nursing  Legacy  Project Summit at California State University at Channel Islands discuss how  to  help  nursing  professionals.  They  tackled  financial, childcare  and  transportation  issues,  identified  at  a  previous summit  as  the  three  main  obstacles  that  conflict  with  the demands of full-time nursing students.

IRIS SMOOT/Acorn Newspapers NEW IDEAS- Participants in the Nursing Legacy Project Summit at California State University at Channel Islands discuss how to help nursing professionals. They tackled financial, childcare and transportation issues, identified at a previous summit as the three main obstacles that conflict with the demands of full-time nursing students.


Ventura County needs nurses. So says a group of experts who met at the Nursing Summit held at California State University at Channel Islands on April 20.

The county has one of the worst nurse-to-population ratios in the country, and the situation only promises to worsen in time if something isn’t done, experts said

Nursing educators, state politicians and members of the local business community came together at the conference to brainstorm ways to help increase the number of nurses in the area.

The conference, hosted by the nonprofit Ventura County Community Foundation and the university, was financed by private grants, including a $250,000 Partners Investing in Nursing’s Future award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The grant was given to only 10 organizations nationwide, and the Ventura County foundation was the only Californiabased agency to receive the funding.

The conference was part of an educational campaign to bring attention to the Ventura Nursing Legacy Project, a collaborative effort by the foundation and university that brought together local experts to write a study to highlight 14 key issues that have caused the shortage of county nurses.

“Our approach has the ability to become a national model,” Richard Rush, university president, said.

The experts said the factors contributing to the nursing shortage are a lack of nursing faculty and adequate space in nursing education programs, lack of child care, violence in the workplace and work-related injuries. The group also said new nurses are often not given on-the-job mentoring support they need to be successful.

With 372 nurses per 100,000 residents, Ventura County’s average is about half that of the state’s at 622 nurses per 100,000, according to the study. The national average is 787 nurses per 100,000 residents.

In the Los Angeles area, which includes Ventura County, 10,000 more nurses are needed. By 2030, those numbers are expected to double to 20,000, putting the state’s greatest need for nurses here.

In addition, the county will need “culturally competent” nurses as its population becomes more diverse. Latinos are expected to make up 54 percent of the population by 2020, becoming the county’s largest ethnic group.

Barbara Thorpe, associate vice president of research and sponsored programs at the university, said it’s important that nurses and other healthcare providers know the cultural mores of patients to gain their trust and acceptance.

And more nurses will be needed to care for the county’s rapidly aging population. Residents 65 and older are expected to increase by nearly 80 percent in 2020.

But the county’s three nursing programs can only fill one in four vacant nursing positions.

About 175 nurses a year graduate from the two community college programs, although more than 650 names sit on a waiting list.

This fall, 66 students will launch the university’s bachelor degree nursing program. Betty Ortiz, program coordinator, said that more than 200 applied and about 700 entering students want pre-nursing as their major.

Summit organizers plan to use the ideas from the conference to find additional funding sources and plan more symposiums in the next future.

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