The healthcare industry’s staffing crisis is most prevalent among nurses, which represent the largest segment (30%) of the workforce and the providers with the most patient contact. The nursing profession alone is expected to see ~200K new openings every year between 2022-2030.

It’s a vicious cycle: short staffing leads to burnout, burnout leads to turnover, and turnover leads to more short staffing… and so on. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (the nation’s largest public health philanthropy) conducted extensive research with thousands of nurses to hear firsthand what’s driving the diminishing workforce, and what needs to be done to address it. Here’s what they found:

1. Nurses join the profession for human connection and want to help drive transformation beyond the bedside (e.g., reducing health disparities). But it’s hard to provide the compassionate and patient-centered care that they were trained and want to provide when they’re stretched and stressed. Patients who receive poor care are often getting that care from a burned-out provider.
2. RNs experienced more workplace injuries than construction workers in 2020. After 12-hour days of life-or-death decision making while also facing belittling, sexism and bullying, pizza parties and Nurses Week posters – though appreciated – are a drop in the bucket. Nurses need mechanisms to report unsafe working conditions as well as real support (e.g., therapy) to deal with the repercussions of them.
3. Nurses crave authentic conversation with each other in a safe space outside their jobs to help solve each other’s problems and share their daily experiences. Unfortunately there are limited opportunities for such exchange. And so SHIFT was born, an online community created by and for nurses – anchored by a podcast and documentary – and built on bonesdeep authenticity. It is bringing the nursing community together, inspiring them to stay strong and motivated to make a difference.