Supply And Demand: Nursing Shortage At Children's

Running head: SUPPLY AND DEMAND: NURSING

Supply and Demand: Nursing Shortage at Children's Medical Center

Samantha Hogan

ECO 360

Economics for Business I

Evanthis Mavrokordatos

March 19, 2005

Supply and Demand: Nursing Shortage at Children's Medical Center

As Children's Medical Center adds beds to the facility, the greater need we have for more nurses. In the past recent months, we have experienced a higher census than usually. This has left us in a staffing crunch. The supply and demand in my scenario would best be described as the more beds we fill; the more nursing staff is required to care for the patients. We have also found that with the competition, a higher pay rate is often needed to keep the staff happy and willing to stay.

Shortages in nursing staff have lead colleges to expand programs and recruitment efforts. To appeal to a new generation and to underrepresented groups--mainly male and minority students--nursing schools are working to revamp their image, using aggressive recruiting tactics that include publicity campaigns, personal follow-up calls, and even visits to elementary schools.

Knowing the census always rises this time of year, we need to be more creative in our recruiting methods. The hospital offers recruiting bonuses, however, this time of year the bonuses double. In doing this, it becomes more attractive for the current staff to recruit friends they may know from other facilities (D. Pettinga, personal communication, March 18, 2005).

Our pay rate has to be higher than others. This is where Children's has fallen short. Our base rate for a Pool (float) nurse is $30 an hour. Cooks Children's pays their Pool nurses $35. With this we are losing

a lot of staff. Therefore, we initiated a winter bonus program. The bonus program requires nurses to work and extra 12 hour shift per week. In doing this, they will earn time and a half for overtime and receive an extra $1500 at the end of the program (D. Pettinga, personal communication, March 18, 2005).

With Children's being a teaching facility, it is quit hard to get adequate staff