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Employer Quotes
The quotes below are from employers in this industry: Health Care
They are talking about this topic: Workforce Trends & Challenges
The quotes below are about this issue:
Licensed Practical Nurse Shortage: Many employers struggle to fill the huge demand for LPNs. This is especially true in long-term facilities. There is high turnover in LPN positions because a large number quickly pursue an RN degree and then move to other positions. Additionally, many LPNs assume leadership positions—rather than hands-on positions—within long-term care facilities.
| "It's nice with our nursing assistants. They come and do the clinicals in our nursing home, and so they get that feel for it already. I don't know if the RNs or LPNs do clinicals in a nursing home. They often use the nursing home as their stepping stone. They can get a job there, it's their first job, and as soon as they have that experience, they move on to the hospitals or the clinics where the pay is better and the hours are better. So, we get a lot of the new graduates. We are kind of a training field; we're their clinical training field to move on to something else. So, it would be nice if they did some of their clinical studies in a nursing home instead of walking into us kind of unprepared. We have our best success with the ones that we grow ourselves, our nursing assistants, and our LPNs. And we've paid for all of their tuition, and their books, and their fees to go on to their next step. And they have that background already in the long-term care." | Central |
| "I think when you talked about doing clinicals in nursing homes, one of the nursing homes—we are a clinical site—but we were one of the last ones to be chosen. They want to go to obstetrics or they want to go to pediatrics. So, I think that's part of the issue, we are not the glamorous part of the medical field or the nursing field. The attitude seems to be, 'Well, I could just get a job at a nursing home, or I can get a job in home care.' So, they do that for a while until they can get something else. I think there should be some more emphasis in the training that they need to have, not that they choose to have. Because sooner or later they are going to end up working with some type of elderly or chronic population. And I think that, like I said, we are not the first choice to do the clinicals. We get a few, but not many, and usually it's somebody who's worked prior as a student." | Central |
| "I discovered yesterday, and I knew it was bad, that the wage difference between acute care and long-term care for an RN is now $30,000 a year. That's impacting who we are getting for applicants. We are also a clinical site for [MnSCU college] Licensed Practical Nursing Program, and we probably had 25 or 30 applicants come in over the last year, students coming in over the last few years. We always meet with them at the end of their clinical experience to see how it's going, and we always ask the question, 'How many of you are planning to go into long-term care after graduation?' And we have yet to have the first hand go up. So, the people that we are getting don't want to be in our world." | Central |
| "Personally, we don't see a lot of issues with hiring RNs, it's LPNs that are more difficult to find. Is there data on how many LPNs keep going with their education? Because that's the biggest issue—we can keep an LPN for a little bit of time while they're planning to become an RN or are actually in school to be an RN. But I no longer see LPNs that want it to be a career. And, so, in the nursing homes we really struggle with keeping LPNs because a lot of people go on with their education, which is great, but we can't afford to have a floor full of RNs." | Central |