aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Nurses in Georgia: do the math

I don’t know that I get the math:

The University System of Georgia is hoping to graduate 50 percent more new nurses in the next three years under a new three million dollar program.

The state’s public college and university system is funding strategies at 16 campuses in hopes of increasing the number of nursing graduates statewide by 700 a year.

Medical College of Georgia President Daniel Rahn told the state Board of Regents on Wednesday during the panel’s monthly meeting that the move means the state would produce 2,400 new nurses annually.

The strategies include offering accelerated degree programs for registered nurses, increasing nursing faculty salaries and hiring more faculty to teach a larger number of students. Each campus will receive anywhere from $140,000 to $200,000 for the strategies.

A recent state House study committee report found that the public health nursing force has dropped to 1,556 in 2006 from 1,700 in 1990.

And the state population is sharply increasing. Meanwhile, the nursing shortage is real. A local health official told me last spring that Georgia has 22,000 hospital beds, but enough nurses for only 16,800 of them. So I’m surely glad to see a commitment to more, but just what does that commitment amount to?

I’m no mathematician, but if it only costs a million bucks to increase the nurses by half, well swell. The way I read the numbers, the cost is around $1,500 per nurse. That sounds cheap to me. But if you add 700 nurses for a total of 2,400, you started off with 1,700, and doesn’t 50% of 1,700 come out to 850?

Just asking.

RELATED: Oh, and there are too few doctors here too. Ah, the magic of the market!