What If Infection Preventionists Went Away?

A new survey indicates that early one-third of registered nurses (RNs) surveyed last month say they will not be working in their current job a year from now and close to half say they plan to alter their career path in the next one to three years in a way that would either take them out of the nursing field entirely or choosing a less demanding role.  Driving part of the decision to potentially change career paths or jobs is the fact that nearly half of those surveyed say their job is affecting their health.

These are among key findings from the 2010 Survey of Registered Nurses:Job Satisfaction and Career Plans, conducted by AMN Healthcare, a provider of comprehensive healthcare staffing and management services. The survey collected data from 1,399 respondents.

Here’s something to ponder – what would happen if this one-third of nurses planning to leave their current job happened to work in infection prevention and control? Could U.S. hospitals afford to lose this many infection preventionists when we all know so many healthcare institutions are already understaffed in this position or department? What would happen to infection rates? Staff compliance with infection prevention practices? Patient safety? It’s a terrible scenario to consider, but it’s plausible.

While the survey highlights dissatisfaction with their current job, most nurses are satisfied with their careers overall, yet 59 percent would select nursing as a career if they had it to do it all over, and only 64 percent would recommend nursing as a career to young people.  Infection prevention is critical but it’s not a glamorous nursing niche and it might be a hard sell to young nurses just out of school. Hospitals must try to find ways to continue to engage their experienced veteran nurses while attracting new nurses to infection prevention, or else any strides made over the last decade toward zero tolerance of preventable infections might be lost.