As 2019 winds to a close, several issues in the nursing industry remain prominently in the news and in the ongoing conversation around nursing as a profession.
What are some of the top issues of 2019 that will carry over into 2020?
80 Percent in 2020
The next year marks the end goal time period for the 2010 Future of Nursing report by the Institute of Medicine that called for 80 percent of registered nurses to have BSN credentials by 2020. According to the Campaign for Action, the ambitious goal won’t be met, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t made a difference. The recap says that RNs with a BSN are at the highest percentage ever with 56 percent having the degree. That’s a seven percentage point increase since the initial report was issued. Even though the goal hasn’t been realized, there’s progress and that bodes well for the entire nursing industry.
Violence in the Workplace
The rate of violence against healthcare workers is skyrocketing. The thought of healthcare providers helping people and becoming targets of violent acts from patients and their social circles, disgruntled workers, or even random perpetrators is terrifying. Luckily, the government has recognized the problem and introduced H.R.1309 – Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act to require organizations to develop and implement plans to protect workers. This bill passed in the House in November and is now under consideration by the Senate.
Nursing Shortage
There is a lot of media attention on a projected nursing shortage over the next decade. As Baby Boomers continue to age and require more healthcare services, nurses will be a big part of that picture. According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine (NCBI) the nursing workforce is also aging, spurring a shortage as it also provides a fantastic job market for nurses of almost any specialty. The issue will continue to attract attention.
Job Stress
Given the topics that are prominently in the news about nursing, it’s no surprise that nurses experience sometimes crippling job stress and burnout. When there aren’t enough nurses to care for a rising number of patients with increasingly complex conditions, the stage is set for nurses taking on too much. When that happens, their physical and mental health can suffer and that means patients aren’t getting the best care possible. This topic garners lots of attention by nurses themselves and by the organizations who recruit, hire, employ, and want to retain them.
Nursing as a Vibrant Profession
Nurses have professional pull. Routinely ranked as the most trusted profession, the nursing industry enjoys good salaries, opportunities for professional growth, respect, and increased independence. As an industry, nursing is committed to a more diverse, more educated, and more representative workforce and takes steps to meet those goals.
With 2020 on the doorstep, let’s see how these topics gains team in the next year.
Are you saving for retirement? Here’s your guide to getting on track with securing your financial future.
Saving for retirement can often feel so daunting that you push it to the back of your mind. When trying to manage your career and other personal finance goals such as buying a house and paying down debt, retirement planning and investing often takes a back seat. You know you should ask your HR department about the 401(k) plan your company offers, but you never get around to it. But it’s worth the effort now so that you are well-prepared for the future.
The truth is many Americans are not saving for their golden years. According to a 2018 survey by Northwestern Mutual, one in five Americans has nothing saved for retirement. And 78% of Americans are “extremely” or “somewhat” concerned about affording a comfortable retirement. One in three Baby Boomers (33%), the generation closest to retirement age, have between $0-$25,000 in retirement savings.
Generations X and Y are often saddled with student loan debt and stagnant wages, making it a struggle to save.
While these are scary facts, the good news is that once you take the time to educate yourself on the basics of retirement planning and you take a few smart steps to invest, you can largely put retirement investing in the back of your mind and not feel guilty that you aren’t taking necessary action.
Jane Bryant Quinn, author of How to Make Your Money Last: The Indispensable Retirement Guide, says many people don’t want to think about retirement planning. She also says that making projections and calculating retirement budgets can be a pain but is important to do.
“You have to add up your savings, estimate what you’ll get from Social Security, make an investment plan, estimate how much income your investments will provide, and estimate your retirement expenses,” says Bryant Quinn.
To help figure all of this out, Bryant Quinn says to
create budgets. “If you’re married, make three estimated budgets—one for you as a couple, one for you if your mate dies first, one for your mate if you die first. For example, married couples get two Social Security checks (one for each). When one of you dies, the survivor will get the larger check but lose the other one. So, you have to plan for all circumstances,” she says.
Daniel Burke, CFP, ChFC, president of Burke Financial Group, LLC, says nurses spend their entire working careers caring for the needs of others, but often by doing this, they tend to neglect important planning components for themselves.
Are you ready to take action? Below are answers to the most common questions about retirement planning and investing to get you started on the road to a secure future.
What Are My Retirement Dreams?
Start with finding your why. What motivates you when you dream about your retirement? Do you want to spend a year traveling around the country in an RV? Do you want to move to a new city? Do you want to spend more time on hobbies such as gardening, crafts, or learning to speak Spanish? Or perhaps you want more time to devote to friends and family or a cause close to your heart.
Identifying the life you’d like to retire to can serve as a strong motivator as you start down the path of savings. It’s much easier to devote 15% of your income to your retirement account versus spending that money on something fleeting when you can envision the life you’re saving for.
How Do I Get Started?
“Benefits through the employer are a great place to start as nurses begin planning for themselves and their families,” says Burke.
Educate yourself on the retirement benefits offered by your employer. If your employer offers a 401(k) or 403(b) option with a matching benefit, sign up for the match immediately. If you are not taking advantage of your employer’s match, you are literally leaving free money on the table.
If your employer doesn’t offer a 401(k) option, then open a Roth IRA through a brokerage such as Fidelity or Vanguard. Contributions made to a Roth are after-tax contributions, but your money and earnings grow tax-free (meaning you will not pay taxes on any returns you earn from your investments).
What If I Haven’t Been Saving?
If you haven’t been saving anything for retirement, it’s important not to beat yourself up. You can’t go back and change the past, but you can commit to saving going forward.
Bryant Quinn offers the following advice, depending on your age.
New Grads: “Start a savings account, to have a little cash on hand. Put a little into your employer’s retirement plan, despite your student loan. If you change jobs, don’t cash out the amount you saved, take it with you to a new job,” says Bryant Quinn.
Mid-Career: Higher earning years means higher savings. “In your retirement plan, chose funds that lean heavily to stock market investments. It doesn’t matter if stocks go down. Throughout history, they have always come back,” says Bryant Quinn. “You have the time to wait. It’s your best shot at a nest egg. Keep contributing to your plan, even if your kids are in college (or at least try to).”
Near Retirement: Time to plan. “Keep investing in stock-owning mutual funds,” says Bryant Quinn. “You will probably live another 30 years (or more—my mom made it to 103). Over such a long period of time, stocks always go up.”
How Much Should I Save?
If you’re starting from scratch, a good starting point is to invest enough to get any company match offered by your employer. This is essentially free money and everyone should take advantage of it. For instance, if your company offers a 5% 401(k) match, you should invest no less than 5%. But that’s just a starting point.
Another strategy that Bryant Quinn suggests is to simply start by taking at least 5% out of every paycheck and putting it into your 401(k) or 403(b). “If you’re already contributing, increase the amount. What will happen when you get a slightly smaller net paycheck? Nothing will happen. We all tend to spend whatever money we have in our checking accounts. If there’s less in your account, you’ll spend less—even without a budget,” she says. “You’ll make small adjustments without realizing it. It’s the only magic I know in personal finance.”
If your company does not offer a 401(k) program or a match, you can open a Roth IRA through a brokerage service on your own.
“If you have no plan [at work], Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) can be purchased at low-cost no-load mutual fund groups such as Vanguard. They’re available at banks, too, but usually with higher fees. Always choose low-cost investments,” says Bryant Quinn.
Once you start gaining some confidence in your knowledge and are eager to save more Bryant Quinn suggests utilizing financial resources, such as online retirement calculators and budgeting tools to estimate retirement living expenses.
Overall, determine a percentage goal that works for you and challenge yourself to increase it incrementally (e.g., every six months or annually). You can also boost your savings effortlessly by automatically investing any annual or performance raises you receive. If you were living on what you made before you got a raise, just keep living off of that amount and invest the extra income.
Do I Need A Financial Planner?
If all of this sounds complicated and you would like a helping hand, consider working with a financial advisor. But choose wisely as many financial advisors get paid by selling you on specific mutual funds, often with high fees. These fees will eat away at your nest egg.
Your best bet is to hire an independent advisor who is fee-only or paid directly by you by the hour. Your company may provide consultations with an advisor from the administrator of your 401(k)/403(b) plan, but it’s important to remember that their loyalty is first and foremost with their employer, not you.
What Is the Biggest Mistake I Could Make?
“Not saving enough,” says Bryant Quinn. “You can save money, even if you’re living paycheck to paycheck.”
With the recent groundswell of the MeToo movement concerning sexual harassment and power inequity, it’s no surprise that industries across the board are reevaluating their working cultures. Health care is no exception and the recent Time’s Up Healthcare movement is gaining attention.
The movement began as a response to the Time’s Up Foundation’s widespread success at promoting safe and healthy work environments and calling attention to how power plays a role in harassment people experience in the workplace.
Time’s Up Healthcare’s website states a mission “to unify national efforts to bring safety, equity, and dignity to our healthcare workplace.” The organization, in partnership with organizations such as the American Nurses Association, American College of Physicians, and the Council of Medical Specialty Societies aims to call attention to the disparities in health care workplaces and the undue burden that kind of culture can carry.
When nurses work in an environment where they are concerned about their own safety or that of their colleagues, the quality of care they can give to patients can be disrupted. The distractions caused by an environment where sexual harassment is either accepted or present but expected to be ignored are enormous. Health care workers in those situations can feel the implications of that stress physically, mentally, and socially.
Instead of being able to concentrate on giving the best care possible, health care workers must constantly weigh the risks. They are required to take the temperature of their workplace and wonder what kind of retribution might happen if they speak up. The cost of speaking up could mean losing their job or even enduring additional threats.
Workplaces like this are entirely unacceptable. Time’s Up Healthcare is shining a spotlight on what’s happening and why it needs to change. The movement is hoping to also build a support network where people who are impacted by harassment at work can go for resources and direction. They also hope to promote an awareness around the issue and exactly the kinds of situations or scenarios that might fall under this kind of problem.
With that aim, the organization hopes to help eliminate this problem. Through education and trainings, harassment and power inequity can be challenged, examined, and eliminated.
Harassment is not okay. Nurses and other healthcare workers deserve better. Their patients deserve better. Time’s Up Healthcare is taking that big leap.
If you are one of the many Americans whose savings plan has been impacted by a smaller-than-expected tax refund this year, it might be a good time to consider changing your financial planning approach.
Lots of people consider the tax return windfall they get every spring as an unofficial savings bonus. In reality, it’s a poor way to save money. The government ends up having your money until you file your taxes. That money does nothing for you while the government holds it. It’s not earning any interest, and it’s not being used to invest in any kind of growth fund.
A more sustainable plan is to make a better estimate of your tax withdrawals so you can retain control of that extra money. You can decide how to invest it so you earn money. Even if you are only earning a small amount, the funds are gaining something they otherwise would not.
Whether you are a new employee just signing up for your withholding or a long-term employee ready to make a change, it only takes filling out one form, the Employee’s Witholding Allowance Certificate or W-4, to change your withdrawal amounts. If you are unsure of how many deductions to claim, you have lots of options to learn about how to handle your money.
Organizations like the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors offer consumers resources to help find what they need. You might just need some advice on how to use your money wisely instead of getting a lump-sum tax refund. Or maybe you’d like to know your options on how to do that and also use your latest pay raise to start or add to a retirement plan. Often a fee-only advisor, who will not earn any commission on products or services, will discuss the best options for your personal situation.
The Financial Insdustry Regulatory Authority website contains valuable information about investing, understanding certain financial brokerage processes, and the difference between financial products and professionals. Websites like The Motley Fool, Kiplinger, or Bankrate give both novice and advanced consumers information they can use. Whether you need information on multiplying your savings for retirement, figuring out how much you can afford for a mortgage, or consolidating your credit card debt, you can get reliable, accurate information if you know where to look.
Once you are armed with information, you can decide if hiring a professional is your next best step. Generally a few hours with a fee-only advisor will pay for itself several times over. They can help you save thousands of dollars while also showing you how to take steps to grow your money, too.
While that boost of cash at the end of tax season is welcome, with a little planning, you can make it even better. And the more control you have over your own money, the better off you will be.
From a student nurse deciding on a career path to a seasoned nurse looking to advance into administration, each step along a nurse’s career is filled with questions. Fortunately, mentors in the nursing industry are becoming a more visible presence.
The Nurse Mentorship Program at Stanford Health Care is one such valued and valuable mentoring program. Introduced in 2004 for graduate nurses, the program now encompasses a range of nurses in different areas of their careers.
Minority Nurse spoke with associate chief nursing officer for inpatient services and magnet program director at Stanford Health Care at Stanford University Anita Girard and with Stanford’s program manager of nursing excellence Kevin Tsui about the distinct benefits of this kind of program.
Girard and Tsui say many nurses seek mentoring for varied reasons. They might seek leadership advice or they might want guidance for switching specialties. Still others may be looking for assistance with specific tasks such as writing or giving a top-notch presentation at a conference.
Any nurse can gain from a mentoring relationship, says Girard, but a specific benefit is one that will help a nurse professionally and personally. “The biggest benefit is the networking nurses have being in a mentoring program,” she says. “Mentoring opens you up to a whole new world.”
Tsui agrees and notes the satisfaction nurses reap from establishing a firm footing in their careers and having someone who can help guide them. The resulting good feelings lead to happier nurses, and the benefits stretch far. “Those mentoring connections streamline goals, build positivity and retention, and nurses feel a sense of control,” he says.
Nurses, says Girard, can feel siloed. Despite being in the same profession, nurses have varying specialties and may not have opportunities to hear from nurses in different areas. Mentoring includes both the one-on-one discussions and the larger access to others in the industry that becomes available. “Mentoring gets you out of that box,” says Girard.
So how does a mentoring relationship benefit the nurses and their organizations? According to Tsui, “It’s crucial. By sharing an organization’s mission, vision, and values, it makes transparent the format for mentoring,” he says.
Nurses in a mentoring relationship within the same organization are working within the same culture, so are able to set clear goals and create objectives that are going to be important to the nurse’s career within that organization and in the larger industry. Often, says Girard, mentors will give guidance based on what they already know about the organization. They will be able to help a nurse put priorities in order for certification, advancement, skills development, and personal improvement.
Mentors are also able to be objective about a nurse’s path, so they can help nurses align their goals and use their own knowledge to help a nurse achieve those goals, says Tsui.
A mentoring relationship is definitely a give and take, says Girard. “You really need to make an effort to understand why you want to get into a mentoring relationship in the first place,” she says. And mentees need to make a solid commitment and understand that any mentoring activity needs to be given top priority, she says.
Mentees are responsible for reaching out, setting up clear timelines, and even using tools to streamline online tasks such as emails and calendar appointments. Any communication should have an agenda with clear and succinct ideas and questions. By doing this, the mentee shows the mentor clear goals and intentions mean they have a goal for mentoring and that it will be productive.
Tsui says that sometimes mentees are not clear about the process and expect the mentor to initiate or complete tasks for them. Instead they need to keep in mind they need to be committed to change and driven to use the guidance of the mentor to advance their goals.
At Stanford Health Care, the mentoring program satisfies a magnet hospital requirement, but the benefits have been extensive. “We are driven to excellence,” says Girard. “It is a journey of innovation and inquiry and what we can do to make things better.”
There is no denying that a mental health stigma exists. People who suffer from depression, anxiety, obsessive thoughts, or even psychosis sometimes feel the pressure of that stigma so greatly, they fail to talk to anyone about it and, in effect, deny themselves treatment that can help them feel better.
Nurses have a pulse on this particular health issue that makes patients feel especially vulnerable. On May 30, everyone is invited to join a Twitter chat about mental health issues hosted by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. At 2 pm EDT, you can use #MHMChat to follow and participate with many top associations and organizations who are closing out Mental Health Awareness Month with the conversation.
Mental Health America is an excellent resource for nurses who want to refer their patients to ways they can take steps for better mental health or also to find ways to improve their own. Those interested in finding out steps they can take to care for their mind and body to help support mental health will find suggestions through the Fitness4Mind4Body campaign. Tips on diet and nutrition (like ensuring proper nutrition and even the importance of certain vitamins and minerals) or the role of stress in mental health can offer effective pointers.
As a nurse, you can ask questions and really listen to your patients to determine if they are struggling with mood changes or psychological struggles. Maybe they don’t admit to feeling sad, but they comment about snarling at colleagues. Or a patient who admits to having trouble sleeping and then can’t get out of bed in the morning for work or other commitments might be trying to reveal information without admitting to mental health struggles. Still others, who might feel a general unease or fear for example, might not even know they are having real problems that can be helped with treatment.
This is also a good time to take stock of your own mental health. Nurses are under enormous stress on the job and don’t always get a chance to eat well, sleep much, or exercise at all. All of those factors can contribute to compassion fatigue, anxiety, depression, and a general decline in mental health.
Luckily, as many work to reduce the stigma of mental health issues, help remains available. Even for patients who live in remote areas, help can be found online or over the phone if they have those connections. The National Institute of Mental Health offers information for getting help that can be accessed by many.
As the month comes to an end, reach out to people in your life to help them if they are struggling. If you are struggling, show yourself some compassion and get help. The results can be life changing.
