Supplemental Nurses Are Just As Educated, Slightly Less Experienced, and More Diverse Compared To Permanent Nurses

In a study published by Health Affairs and authored by Linda H. Aiken, the Claire M. Fagin Leadership Professor of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania finds that supplemental nurses were somewhat less experienced than permanent nurses, averaging fifteen years of experience in 2008 compared to eighteen years for permanent nurses. The supplemental nurse workforce was more diverse racially and ethnically and more likely to be male than the permanent nurse workforce. These data show that employing supplemental nurses could help meet the challenges of an aging nursing workforce, the projected future shortage of nurses, and an increasingly diverse US population.