As COVID-19 patients poured into hospitals during the pandemic, the nursing industry—already under pressure from staffing shortages—faced enormous new challenges.
Nurses worked extra shifts to care for the surge of dangerously ill patients. Masks and other personal protective equipment were in short supply. Before the release of COVID-19 vaccines, nurses risked their own health while worrying about spreading the potentially deadly virus to their loved ones.
“We had adrenaline pumping for weeks and weeks. I saw amazing teamwork and leadership from the nursing staff, but there was trauma associated with that. It gets harder and harder to keep that pace,” says SUSAN STACEY (’84 Nursing), chief executive for Providence Inland Northwest, which includes Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane and four other hospitals.
On the pandemic’s five-year anniversary, the nursing profession is still grappling with the fallout. An estimated 100,000 registered nurses left the workforce during the pandemic due to stress, burnout, or retirement, according to the National Council of State Boards of Nursing. The 2023 study also found that about 20 percent of the nation’s RNs planned to leave their jobs within a few years for the same reasons. Even younger nurses reported feeling fatigued.
Washington is experiencing similar trends. In 2023, the state had about 8,000 openings for registered nurses, according to the Washington Center for Nursing. As leaders work to recruit new talent, there’s a renewed emphasis on supporting nurses in their role as caregivers, says MARY KOITHAN, dean of the Washington State University College of Nursing.
“Since the pandemic, we’ve become refocused on the importance of caregiver wellbeing,” Koithan says. “You can’t take care of someone else if you aren’t taking care of yourself.”
At the College of Nursing, teaching self-care awareness is part of accreditation requirements for the college, which graduates about 260 students with bachelor’s of nursing degrees each year and about 65 with advanced degrees.
By the time students leave the program, they should recognize the importance of practicing wellness and resiliency in their own lives, says Anne Mason, associate dean of academic affairs. If they are in leadership, they should understand how to promote self-care in their organizations.
Teresa Rangel (’19 PhD Nursing) worked at Sacred Heart Medical Center during the pandemic. “The hospital was immediately interested in ‘how can we support our staff?’” she says.
Nurses and other caregivers could sleep at the hospital between shifts if they were concerned about exposing family members to COVID. They had access to onsite chaplains, counselors, and debriefing teams after patient deaths. Providence Inland Northwest also encouraged workers to use employee assistance programs for counseling by permanently eliminating the copays.
The hospital’s support extended to research on nurses’ well-being.
“A healthy diet, exercise, and adequate sleep help people manage stress and avoid acute illness, but the nurses were working all these extra shifts,” says Rangel, the hospital’s former nurse scientist, now an assistant professor at Eastern Washington University. “We wanted to know if they were meeting national recommendations in these areas.”
To Rangel’s surprise, busy nurses at 10 Providence hospitals volunteered for the study. When results were tabulated, night shift nurses lagged behind their daytime counterparts in diet, sleep, and exercise. It indicates opportunities for education and additional support, Rangel says.
“Night nurses, even on days off, were less physically active. They were understandably tired,” she says. “But in the long run, binging on Netflix isn’t going to help. A sedentary lifestyle makes things worse.”
Besides supporting existing nurses, active recruitment of new RN candidates is essential, industry leaders say. “We’re not going to fix the nursing shortage by fighting for the same people,” Stacey says. “We have to go deeper into the process.”
Sacred Heart has an internal training program for certified nursing assistants. If CNAs working there later want to pursue a nursing degree, the hospital offers financial assistance for their education. Sacred Heart also works with the Spokane School District to hire high school students interested in health care. While they work part-time at entry-level jobs, they get exposed to future career possibilities.
The WSU College of Nursing, meanwhile, is developing a program aimed at helping people with bachelor’s degrees in other fields switch to a nursing career. The college is still finalizing the curriculum for approval and will share admission updates on its website.
Despite the challenges of COVID, the pandemic reinforced nurses’ value as trusted health care providers, Koithan says.
“Nurses were called upon to be advocates for vaccines, COVID testing, and new methods of treatment,” she says.
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Project Portrait — featuring pandemic health care workers with Providence Inland Northwest