By Connor Boyd
BLOOMINGTON – Illinois may soon face a shortage of Registered Nurses (RN) as an aging workforce plans to retire. The 2014 Illinois Registered Nurse workforce survey warrants concern as baby boomers begin to fade.
The spokesperson for The Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, Terry Horstman, said the shortage could become drastic.
“One third of all RN’s, ages 55 to 65, plan to retire within the next five years,” she said. “This has the potential to leave voids in psychiatric school, home health and community health nursing.”
The survey also showed a lack of gender and cultural differences in the registered nurses workforce, according to Horstman.
“The data that we found indicates that the cultural diversity of the registered nurses workforce does decrease in the younger cohorts and, of course, this is a concern given the growing diversity of our state,” added Horstman.
Only seven percent of those 25 years and younger are self-reported as being male. Hortsman added that this is an urgent matter in specific fields.
“This is concerning because the specialties currently have significantly fewer registered nurses thorough the ages of 25-35 in the Ph.D. pipeline to replace the retiring registered nurses,” Horstman continued.
The voluntary survey was completed by 52,902 RNs, representing 31 percent of the total RN population in Illinois.
Connor Boyd can be reached at [email protected].
