Burnout, violence, understaffing — nursing isn’t your average career. It’s a workplace battleground, one where wars of attrition against an overwhelmed health care system are fought every day.
Emory University’s Georgia Nursing Workforce Center is fighting to turn the tide, but they need help from local nurses to secure a victory.
Now there is an opportunity to do just that, said the center’s executive director, Chelsea Hagopian, DNP, APRN, AGACNP-BC. Georgia nurses only need to answer some survey questions to make it happen.
The 2024 National Nursing Workforce Survey, a biennial data collection dedicated to better understanding the challenges of modern nursing, is underway. Open until Sept. 29, 2024, nurses are invited at random to take the survey. But the Peach State has a history of low participation (roughly 10%), and it’s affecting efforts to improve the nursing workplace.
“I would simply like to stress to anyone who is a nurse or knows a nurse in Georgia to please encourage all Georgia nurses to check their email, specifically to look for an invitation from ‘NCSBN Research’ to participate in the 2024 National Nursing Workforce Survey,” Hagopian told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in an email. “And if you are a Georgia nurse and are randomly selected to participate, please complete the survey!”
Why is this questionnaire so important? It’s data for industry researchers nationwide, but it also allows Georgia researchers a special opportunity to better understand the unique challenges faced on a state level.
“For example, the Georgia Nursing Workforce Center (GNWC), as the state member for Georgia at the National Forum of State Nursing Workforce Centers, receives the state-level data from these survey studies,” she said. “The latest GNWC report, ‘Impact of COVID-19 on the Georgia Nursing Workforce, 2022′ compares the Georgia nursing workforce to the nationwide nursing workforce based on a subset of data from the 2022 iteration of the survey related to the impact of COVID-19 and represents best available data on the impact of COVID-19 on the Georgia nursing workforce.”
The pandemic’s impact on Georgia nurses was apparent in the data. Around 25% of RNs and LPNs experienced high levels of emotional drain, exhaustion and burnout on a daily basis. But those numbers don’t tell the whole story.
“While this latest GNWC report represents best available data on the impact of COVID-19 on the Georgia nursing workforce, best available data here isn’t the same as best possible data,” Hagopian added. “Robust response rates improve our confidence in the data being truly representative of the experiences of the Georgia nursing workforce. That is, better data improves our ability to tell the true story of nursing in Georgia to the media, policymakers, employers and others, and to make good, actionable recommendations for strengthening the sustainability and well-being of the Georgia nursing workforce.”
Local nurses can anticipate seeing their survey invites in their inboxes on Mondays and Fridays.
“I am optimistic that we will see improved response rates for Georgia this year,” the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing assistant clinical professor said. “I believe a key factor is our present intentional focus and outreach in the state about the 2024 National Nursing Workforce Survey and, importantly, having such a robust GNWC Advisory Board with diverse representation connecting key leaders across the state is incredibly powerful in getting the word out to nurses in Georgia.”
For more information on the survey, visit ncsbn.org/research/recent-research/workforce.page.
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