Federal Medicaid Spending Cuts: The Wrong Ways and the Right Ways
As Congress Considers Cuts to Medicaid Spending, Policymakers Should Better Account for States’ Ability to Pay
Blog Post
Top 5 Reasons Why U.S. Nurses Are Leaving Their Jobs
Study Suggests Hospitals Could Improve Working Conditions to Retain Nursing Staff
Print:
The seismic departures in the nursing workforce threaten to impair access and quality of care across the country. And these trends concerned health care leaders and policymakers even before the major disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Today, hospitals continue struggling to fill openings even though the U.S. has never had more actively-licensed nurses (5.6 million), driven by record-breaking graduations from schools and a robust job forecast.
To understand what is driving the exodus, Penn LDI researchers surveyed more than 7,800 nurses who left employment between 2018 and 2021, and published their findings in a recent study in JAMA Network Open.
Here are the top five reasons why nurses left their jobs:
- Planned retirement. Of those surveyed, 30% left employment for a retirement they had planned.
- Burnout. About 1 in 4 respondents reported that they left because of burnout.
- Insufficient staffing. Related to experiencing burnout, 21% of those surveyed identified a lack of sufficient staffing as the cause of their departure.
- Poor work-life balance. The inability to balance restrictive and often unpredictable work schedules with family life led about 18% of respondents to depart from their jobs.
- Concerns related to COVID-19. Of those surveyed, 17% said concerns about COVID-19, including concern about family member exposure, led to their departure.
The researchers point out that all of these reasons (aside from planned retirement) are factors within the control of the institutions. They argue that substantive improvements to work conditions could ease the nursing retention crisis.
The study, “Top Factors in Nurses Ending Health Care Employment Between 2018 and 2021,” was published on April 9, 2024 in JAMA Network Open. Authors include K. Jane Muir, Joshua Porat-Dahlerbruch, Jacqueline Nikpour, Kathryn Leep-Lazar, and Karen B. Lasater.
Author
Julia Hinckley, JD
Director of Policy Strategy
More on Health Care Access & Coverage
Medicaid’s Role in Health and in the Health Care Landscape
LDI Expert Insights and Key Takeaways from Select Publications
AI Scribes: Can Technology Do More Than Free Doctors From Data Entry?
A Penn Lab Takes a New Approach to Unpacking the Doctor-Patient Encounter
How Corporatization Continues to Change U.S. Health Care
Penn LDI Virtual Seminar Featured Top Experts Analyzing the Issues
Ripple Effect: Five Ways The Dobbs Decision is Transforming Pregnancy and Pediatric Care
Higher Costs and Less Access Are Big Concerns, LDI Fellows Say