Can Recruiting International Nurses Address the U.S. Nursing Shortage?

WASHINGTON (May 4, 2023) — The United States is facing a nursing staffing crisis, with high turnover rates exacerbated by poor management practices. To address this issue, some healthcare organizations and policymakers have turned to recruiting internationally educated nurses, but this alone is not a sustainable solution.

In a recent paper published in Health Affairs, Tony Yang, an Endowed Professor in Health Policy at the GW School of Nursing, and his co-authors argue that a more comprehensive approach is needed to address the complex recruiting and retention issue in the nursing workforce.

Yang and his colleagues identify the challenges that international nurses face when working in the U.S., including issues with collegiality, burnout, racism, and job restrictions, as well as structural barriers to employment. To create a more sustainable and equitable nursing workforce for all, they suggest six steps. These include:

• Incentivize health care organizations to retain their U.S.-educated workforce, with nurse retention becoming a part of organizational performance benchmarking.
• Designate nursing as a Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics field.
• Prioritize recruitment based on population health needs, with a focus on populations who speak languages other than English.
• Require organizations that hire international nurses to have transitional education programs to support nurses during their first two years of work and life in the U.S.
• Leverage the skills of “hidden” international nurses,” or nurses educated in their countries who now live in the U.S. but are unable to become credentialed. 
• Support more research efforts on effective retention strategies for nurses.

The paper, “Why International Recruitment Won’t Solve the US Nursing Staffing Crisis,” was recently published in Health Affairs. Faculty at the University of Missouri and New York University contributed to this paper.