In our Spotlight on Business Report, there's a new proposal for rebuilding the state's nursing workforce in the aftermath of the pandemic.

And it focuses on retaining those who are already in the job.

The New Jersey Collaborating Center for Nursing wants the state to prioritize things like adequate staffing, bolstering the education system for nursing and finding more opportunities for promotions and job growth.

Why?

Well, the organization crunched the numbers and confirmed just how badly demand is outpacing supply nationwide.

In 2022, the annual turnover rate for registered nurses was 22 and a half percent.

But in New Jersey, that number was 26%, and it was far worse for licensed practical nurses.

For more on the report and this ongoing issue, I'm joined by Edna Cadmus.

She's the executive director at NJ CCN.

And welcome to the show.

Essentially, you all confirm what we have been seeing over the last couple of years in terms of the decline in this industry.

What specifically, if there's one item out of all of this, can the State do to really turn this around?

I don't know that I can say that there is one item that they could do because as you know, the health care system is very complex.

So we really need to be thinking about, one, how do we build in on recruitment?

And right now we had a bill which was just reintroduced that is looking to get $26.7 million to support nursing education and some other key indicators within the nursing workforce.

So certainly pipeline is important.

We need more faculty.

There's a shortage of faculty that we need to address.

I also found it interesting that there was an emphasis on the approaches that nurses are using, sort of taking the onus off the individual and making it a resiliency of the workforce as a whole.

Can you talk to me about that and why that matters when it comes to things like burnout, which we know is happening?

Right.

So we know that after the pandemic and during the pandemic, nurses were severely affected emotionally from the stressors that they went underwent.

One of the things that was supported in this last budget cycle was our New Jersey knew, which is our emotional well-being focus.

And that really has helped nurses in terms of sharing their stories and also providing stress, first aid to them and peer to peer support.

But we know that organizations have a key role in ensuring that their staff are resilient and that they can help them in overcoming some of the issues that they face.

So one of the things that we've worked on is to help new graduate nurses transition into practice.

We worked with 23 organizations across the state to ask them to help us in terms of providing a very standardized education for them and supports through preceptors and mentors over the first year of their practice to actually help them in transition.

What else are you all suggesting through this report that the state do to turn this deficit around?

This is certainly expanding the nursing education system through investments, and that's again, faculty, clinical sites, equipment and technology.

We're also talking about investing in retention, looking at career opportunities for nurses, helping new nurses transition into practice and making sure that their environments are healthy.

Yesterday, we actually had a joint meeting with 86 staff, nurses and first line nurse managers across the state, and we've asked them to help us in terms of looking at how we can best improve the work environment for them.

And that was a collaborative between the New Jersey State Nurses Association and JCC and the Health Care Association of New Jersey, the Nardone Group, the Home Care Association, and the New Jersey organized nurse leaders.

We want to make sure we hear their voices because they know the best solutions.

It's not going to come from us individually, but from the collective.

That's a fair point.

Edna Cadmus is the executive director of the New Jersey Collaborating Center for Nursing.

Edna, thank you so much.

Thank you.