Date: 01/01/2001

Author(s): Janet M. Coffman, Joanne Spetz, Jean Ann Seago, Emily Rosenoff, Ed O'Neil

 

For a host of complex and interrelated reasons California may not have adequate numbers of nurses with appropriate skills over the coming decades. This problem is just rising to the attention of the profession, nursing educators, and managers in the health system. Increasingly, it will affect the public through constrained access, higher costs for care, and reduced quality of service. While the nursing crisis in California has some distinct characteristics, it is essentially driven by the same dynamics that exist throughout the U.S. This report is an effort to capture the complexity of the problem and to identify those longer-term strategies that can assist California in positioning nursing education, practice, and professionalism to meet the challenges of the coming years.