Access to healthcare in rural areas of the US may have serious limitations due to the relative lack of mobility within the registered nurse (RN) profession.
According to a study on the geographic mobility of RNs, published recently in Health Affairs magazine, more than half (52.5%) of newly licensed RNs work within 40 miles of where they attended high school.
A higher number of nurses reported practicing in the same state in which they attended high school. Of the nurses surveyed who held associate’s degrees, nearly 4 in 5 (78.7%) practiced in the same state, and more than 3 in 4 (76.8%) of nurses with bachelor’s degrees practiced in the same state in which they attended high school.
According to the study’s authors, hospitals and other healthcare settings must rely heavily on locally trained RNs due to the low geographic mobility of the profession. Moreover, when there are not enough RNs in the local area, it can be difficult to recruit nurses into the field. In rural areas where there are fewer schools of nursing, this may create an obstacle for proper healthcare.
“Given the strong tendency for nurses to practice close to where they attended nursing school and to attend nursing school near where they graduated high school, it’s not surprising that parts of the country with few or no schools of nursing are struggling to find nurses,” said Christine Kovner, PhD, RN, FAAN, professor at the College of Nursing, New York University.
Four policy changes for increasing the number of nurses in rural areas are recommended by the study authors:
Source: NYU.
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