There is a genuine reason to cheer for the aspiring nursing graduates all across the USA. According to The American Nurses Association (ANA) more than 1.1 million new nurses would be needed in the healthcare sector by 2022. This is a staggering number that will give hope to many who want to pursue their career in Nursing. Growing health awareness, increased government spending, big investments in the healthcare industry, a sizable chunk of retiring nursing professionals are the prime reasons behind this astounding number.
Fresh Space Created by Retiring Nursing Professionals
America is home to nearly 320 million people and the number of nurses that take care of this gigantic population is approx. 3.9 million. According to American Nurses Association by 2024 more than 7Lakh+ nurses will get retired. A bulk of existing nurses is going through their peak career time and will reach the age of 65 in coming years. This will lead to the creation of half-a-million fresh nursing jobs in the US healthcare market in coming decade.
Huge Growth Potential in Home Healthcare Services
According to Zion Research report, the global market of home healthcare services was about $228.90 billion in 2015 and it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 9.40% between 2016 and 2021. According to the report, it is estimated that by 2021 the home healthcare market will become a $391.41 billion industry and will help in creating massive jobs for nursing graduates.
The home healthcare market is largely driven by the geriatric population and it includes activities like daily bathing, dressing, eating, occupational & physical therapy, speech therapy, and skilled nursing. The population of elderly people is growing all around the world and they are extremely vulnerable to chronic diseases like diabetes, respiratory problems, blood pressure etc. The self-awareness among the patients about the problems associated with these chronic diseases is leading to a surge in the demand of home health care professional all around the world.
Huge Spending by the US Government in Healthcare service
The USA is one of the biggest spenders in healthcare services around the world. The US government had spent more than $3.2 trillion dollar in 2015 to provide quality healthcare service to their citizens and this amount was 17.8% of the GDP. In the financial year of 2016, the amount had increased to $3.9 trillion, which accounted for 21 percent of the GDP. Future spending in health services is likely to be followed as per the past trend and will continue to grow further, which ultimately would result into more jobs creations.
Growing Health Awareness
Apart from the developed countries, many parts of the world are going through massive economic transition. Millions of people are now getting quality education than ever before and moving out of poverty with more self-awareness about various diseases. Due to dangers of various life-threatening diseases, more and more citizens are now pulling towards clinics for precautionary health checkup. This trend has triggered the need of large number of nurses in pathology lab and clinics as well.
To exploit this opportunity from the shortfall of well-qualified healthcare assistants, nursing graduates must have the desired skillset and rigorous training under the stringent real-life based environment. And this is where “Simulation Based Training” comes into picture.
Simulation Based Learning for Better Nursing Career
The novel idea of Simulation Based Learning was incepted to provide nursing students an opportunity to practice the concepts taught in theory even before starting real-world nursing practice. Simulation based learning instill practical knowledge that is based upon real-life situations to help students develop critical problem solving skills. Due to the advancements in patient safety issues and ethical concerns associated with nursing practice, student’s direct exposure to patient treatment is no longer permissible in most of the colleges. Simulation based nursing education is a pedagogical approach that provides nursing students an opportunity to practice different critical medical scenario’s based on real-life –situation without compromising patient’s well-being. This whole practice is conducted in a safe and controlled environment and Mannequins are used instead of human body to conduct test. This practice not only reduce the medical errors, which is considered as the third leading cause of death but also assist the nursing graduates to imbibe the core practical knowledge of nursing.
Simulation-based learning benefits nursing students to effectively develop non-technical skills, practice rare emergency situations, and gives exposure to varied range of life threatening situations. This advanced training practice can be adopted by using low fidelity simulation to high fidelity simulation according to specific learning outcomes and educational levels. In many research reports it is proven that simulation based learning has a positive impact on student learning and therefore many colleges are providing this facility to their students.
The consequences of sedentary lifestyle, climate change, food habits, and hectic work hours have already taken huge toll on human health. With increasing globalization, growing income and more self-health-awareness among people than ever along with growing numbers of hospitals, medical institutions, and lucrative medical tourism, the healthcare sector will only move in the upward direction in the future and thus will create plethora of job opportunities for nursing graduates.
