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Nurses' Accelerating Pace Toward Retirement 'Striking'

 |  By Alexandra Wilson Pecci  
   November 05, 2013

An annual survey of registered nurses designed to measure career paths and satisfaction levels finds the intent-to-retire rate among RNs has jumped to 13%. It had been running at 6% in previous years.

At 71 years old, Charlie Duckett, RN, has been caring for patients for nearly 25 years, but his enthusiasm for the profession hasn't waned.

"I'm very dedicated. I love what I do," he says. "You go to the hospital, and you take care of people, and you help save lives. And at the end of the day, you feel like you've really helped people. I never wake up in the morning and say, 'I don't want to go to work.'"

In his two decades as a travel nurse and previously, as a military diver and medic in the army's Special Forces, Duckett has been to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro and to the bottom of the sea. He's treated patients all over the country, from Hawaii to Alaska, California to Connecticut.

A note of excitement rises in Duckett voice when he talks about patient care. It's this kind of enthusiasm that he'll take with him when he finally retires from nursing.

A survey of registered nurses from the staffing firm AMN Healthcare finds that approximately 23% of nurses age 55 and older plan to dramatically change their work life in the very near future, including 13% who say they will retire. Study author Marcia Faller, RN, PhD, chief clinical officer at AMN Healthcare, says this year's "planning-to-retire" percentage is much higher than in years before.

"The intent-to-retire rate jumped to 13%. It had been running at 6%," she told me. "It is striking."

Striking as it may be, the spike to 13% won't be particularly surprising to nurse leaders whom Faller believes are "in tune with their retiring nurses." The challenge then becomes getting creative about not losing those retiring nurses completely. After all, when someone like Duckett retires, the nursing profession will not only be down one employee, but his co-workers and patients will undoubtedly miss his decades of experience.

Faller says nurse leaders should ask, "Are there things we can do differently to keep those nurses in the workforce longer? They have a vast amount of knowledge and experience."

For instance, Faller suggests offering shorter shifts to nurses who are nearing retirement. Already, some older nurses seem to be adjusting their hours. According to the survey, among nurses age 19–39, 60% work 36–40 hours per week, compared to 53% for nurses age 40–54 and 47% for nurses 55 and older.

Also, 4% of nurses age 55 and older work less than 10 hours a week. Nurse leaders looking to retain older nurses might also consider changing the work itself, such as using the older nurses for training or precepting, Faller says.

The survey polled 3,413 respondents to get insight about everything from career plans to views about EMRs, the quality of patient care, career satisfaction, and the nursing shortage.

In addition to the new data about nurses' intent to retire, the survey also shows generational gaps in the perception of nursing. For instance, older and younger nurses are somewhat split on their views and opinions about EMRs. When asked whether the use of EMRs at their facility positively influences their job satisfaction, 67% of nurses age 19–39 strongly agreed or agreed, compared to 51% of nurses age 40–54 and 45% of nurses age 55 and older.

Regarding whether EMRs positively influence the quality of patient care, nurses age 19–39 answered in the affirmative at a rate nearly 20% higher than nurses age 55 and older.

Faller also says that older nurses are a bit more cynical about the quality of patient care. Older nurses tend to say patient care is worse than it used to be, whereas younger nurses say it's better, a difference that Faller attributes to nurses being busier and having sicker patients than in the past.

"Patient care in hospitals has really changed dramatically," Faller says. There's now little time for nurses to have long conversations with patients at the bedside or to give them "the backrubs that we used to give when I graduated from nursing school," she says.

As older nurses start retiring at a faster clip, the people who remember when such intimate and personal care was the norm will dwindle. Nurse leaders should start thinking now about what that will mean for their hospitals and for patients.

"I think we've been expecting it. I don't think it will be a surprise. I think it will be a little scary," Faller says. "They know it's going to happen… it's just a matter of when."

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Alexandra Wilson Pecci is an editor for HealthLeaders.

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