SC has a nursing shortage. Will more instructors improve patient care?

The Palmetto State is running short staffed in one of its most vital professions: nursing. Can enough nurses be trained to fill the openings? And what can South Carolina do about it?

Nationwide, a nursing shortage has become apparent since COVID-19 hit, causing many to leave the field due to stress and burnout. Even before COVID-19, South Carolina was struggling with staffing, and the pandemic made it worse. South Carolina is one of the states with the most significant scarcities. It will need an estimated 10,400 nurses to meet the demand through the end of the decade.

Faculty shortages at nursing schools across the country has been raised as an issue.

According to American Association College of Nursing report on 2021-2022 Enrollment and Graduations in Baccalaureate and Graduate Programs in Nursing, U.S. nursing schools turned away 91,938 applications from nursing programs in 2021 due to a lack of faculty, clinical sites, classroom space, clinical preceptors, and budget constraints.

The AACN also reported that in October 2022, a total of 2,166 full-time faculty vacancies were were present after doing a survey of 909 nursing schools across the country.

Does South Carolina have enough faculty for nurses?

South Carolina currently has 642 nursing faculty, according to the Commission on Higher Education, spread out among research institutions, comprehensive teaching institutions and technical colleges.

The state allotted $10 million in the Education Lottery account to go toward nursing bonuses and tuition reimbursements last year and is doing the same this year. Additionally, last year the state put aside funding in the budget for nursing and medical professionals’ salary increases.

Marc Truesdale, SC budget director, said there wasn’t anything in the budget this year specifically carved out for nurses, but there is lottery funding set aside for them again.

The budget is set each year on what the state needs most, so there’s no set amount for spending on healthcare needs, he added.

According to the state’s proviso in this year’s budget, of the $10 million in the Lottery Education Account to the Nursing Initiative and GME programs, $5 million will provide bonuses or supplement the salaries of existing full-time faculty.

The other 5 million will provide tuition reimbursement or scholarships for students enrolled in graduate-level nurse educator programs, Doctor of Nursing Practice, or Ph.D. programs. The program’s mission is to create more faculty in South Carolina. The recipients must agree to take a faculty role in a South Carolina nursing program after graduation for two years for each year they receive the scholarship.

What is driving the nursing shortage in SC?

Dr. Jeannette Andrews, Dean of the College of Nursing at USC, said South Carolina had projected to have a major nursing shortage by 2030, and that was before COVID-19. A lot of nurses decided to move into travel nursing during and after Covid, which took away from regular staff in hospitals and other areas.

About 100,000 nurses left the profession due to the stress of COVID-19, according to a 2023 study by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing. The study also revealed that another 610,388 registered nurses who had an average age of 57 and more than 10 years of experience said they planned to leave the workforce by 2027 because of burnout, stress or retirement.

The main concerns playing into the nursing shortage in South Carolina, Andrews said, are retirement projections, South Carolina’s growing population and people living longer.

“We appreciate the support the legislature has given, they partner really well with us,” Andrews said. “But there’s always more, right.”

What do the schools need?

Andrews said there needs to be more faculty, full and part time, availability of clinical sites and physical space for classrooms and simulations.

Nursing programs can’t require their undergraduates to stay in the state, but Andrews said 70% of those graduating from USC Columbia stay in South Carolina. She also said they have partnerships and incentives such as sign-on bonuses to retain the students in the state.

Andrews said she wants to focus on state-funded schools, and the state legislature has been helpful in those pursuits.

In the past, states like Florida had set aside a sum of money for schools to apply for what they needed. If they needed more space, they could make a proposal to do so.

“Each of us kind of need different things,” Andrews said. “I desperately needed space. I’m in a 50-year-old building that’s, you know, I’ve renovated every closet in the building and I just couldn’t do anything else, I couldn’t add anymore people in the building.”

Andrews said an approach like the one in Florida, where people could identify where their needs are each year and then create proposals to successfully alleviate those issues would be helpful.