Nurse Residency Programs: Implementation into Rural and Urban Hospital Settings

One of the greatest challenges the health care industry faces today is the shortage of registered nurses. An aging population is causing an unprecedented number of nurses to retire from the profession. Also, the nursing schools are not able to keep up with the demand of students enrolling annually. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that by 2022, there will be more than a million job openings for nurses in the United. States. This number will significantly affect the hospitals in the rural and urban areas, where there is a lack of availability of new nurses and smaller towns/hospitals lack the allure that metropolitan hospitals offer.