The United States continues to face a critical shortage of Registered Nurses and the latest statistics point to a worsening situation as the baby boom generation begins to retire. As the average age of all Americans continues to creep higher, it is unrealistic to expect that there will be enough new graduates in the U.S. to equal the number of nurses projected to retire over the next two decades. The United States needs to begin to formulate a long-term strategy to increase its pool of available nurses including foreign nurse recruitment.
Countries like the Philippines and India are graduating more nurses than their respective countries need and China is quickly ramping up their "production" of nurses for exportation to other countries. Great Britain, Ireland and other industrialized countries have utilized foreign trained nurses for years and have streamline processes in place for immigration, orientation, licensing that get qualified nurses working quickly. These countries have "non-immigrant" work visas that permit foreign trained workers to work only while there is a demand for the nurse's skills. If demand decreases then the work visa is not renewed and the nurse typically must return to his or her own country or find another country that is currently in need of his or her skills. In fact, many nurses travel to Australia, New Zealand, Africa and the Middle East for a variety of reasons, but primarily they chose to work in these countries because the countries facilitate the process. There are literally tens of thousands of "international travel nurses" that move between countries to provide for themselves, see the world, and gain valuable experience while working abroad and although the U.S. has utilized their services we have not made the commitment to facilitated the process like other countries have. Obviously, in a post 9/11 world the U.S. needs to be prudent when it comes to the issue of immigration, but provided there are strict visa regulations in placed and they are enforced the U.S. can utilize more effectively these nurses as small part of a comprehensive plan to address the nursing crisis.