When Independence's Central School of Practical Nursing begins orientation Sept. 9 for its first class as part of NewBridge Cleveland, staff hope it will be a step toward reversing the nursing shortage that has been an issue since the pandemic.
"At one point, they had less than 10 students in a class several years ago during COVID," said Erin Slay, the school's associate dean. "I'm happy to say that we are accepting enrollment for 46 students."
With resources from NewBridge, a workforce development nonprofit, the nursing school will be able to triple its class size, Slay said, adding that this will help reverse the drop in the local nursing workforce in the region.
"It's just supply and demand. If you can put 10 people toward that, or 40 or 45 to that every four and a half months, then just by sheer numbers, you are helping to make a dent in those openings," Slay said.
The nursing shortage has largely been blamed on the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent burnout nurses experienced after hospitals were overwhelmed with patients.
The nursing school is focused on preventing burnout, and its partnership with NewBridge strengthens that focus by providing holistic support to students, Slay said.
"We're building the whole person, so we are here to support our students with mental health, with social support, really helping them make the transition into health care," she noted.
Focusing on nurses' mental health is essential to avoiding burnout that is plaguing the profession, Slay said.
“One of our goals is really to help equip our students so that they have a good foundation on how to care for themselves to try to reduce the amount of burnout that we're seeing in health care through emotional stress and trauma," Slay explained.
The school offers three cohorts per year, averaging 32 students per class. Starting in 2026, classes will be offered in the school's new 60,000-square-foot location on Superior Avenue on Cleveland's East Side. The new location will allow the school to be more community-focused, Slay said.
"It's helping our community access education that will help them support their families," she said. "And then when they enter the health care arena, they then are helping to care for our community. It's really full circle, and it's something we're incredibly proud of."
In late 2023, the Ohio Nurses Association, which represents over 200,000 nurses across the state, launched the Code Red campaign to call attention to the shortage of nurses in Ohio hospitals, which the group said could lead to a patient care crisis.
The campaign focuses on five areas, including staffing levels, working conditions, the nursing workforce pipeline, corporate trends and trust and agency within the profession. Their goal was to encourage employers and lawmakers to implement the staffing ratios their nurses need.
The ONA conducted a survey in 2023 that received over 11,000 responses from licensed nurses in Ohio, seeking to learn why nurses are leaving bedside care positions.
They found:
- 58% of nurses who left bedside roles did so because of their patient care load.
- 70% of direct care nurses are currently considering leaving bedside roles because of their patient care load.
- 88% of nurses would consider staying in bedside roles if Ohio had legally enforceable minimum staffing standards.
Legislators at the Ohio Statehouse introduced Ohio House Bill 285, the Nurse Workforce and Safe Patient Care Act, in September 2023, aimed at addressing this shortage. The bill calls for increased funding for nursing schools and establishing standards for staffing levels at hospitals.
The legislation would establish minimum staffing standards in Ohio hospitals, create a loan-to-grant program to support nurses in training, ensure accountability in hospital compliance, establish nurse staffing committees with direct caregivers, and create whistleblower protections for patients, nurses and hospital staff.
The Ohio Nurses Association supports H.B. 285, which is currently under consideration in the House Health Provider Services Committee.
