Nursing Workforce Study
Ohio’s developmental disabilities community has long struggled with a shortage of nurses to provide care to people with developmental disabilities living in the family home. The pandemic, coupled with significant pay increases for travel nurses, has heightened the nursing workforce shortage crisis across the state. Families are often having to consider out-of-home options for their loved ones with developmental disabilities, which range from small private providers to large intermediate care facilities (ICF), and state developmental centers.
The goal of the study is to assess and report on the home care nursing crisis and formulate recommendations to key stakeholders to reduce the nursing workforce shortage in the field of developmental disabilities.
Project Goals:
- Plan, organize, and participate in meetings with local public health officials and other entities, and/or collect and analyze data to facilitate the development of reports.
- Examine the Developmental Disability Home Care Nursing workforce shortage including an assessment of how the COVID- 19 pandemic exacerbated already increasing nursing workforce shortage within the developmental disability field. Provide recommendations on how to retain the current nursing workforce and increase the number of people entering this field of work to help safeguard this workforce from a future crisis like the COVID 19 pandemic.
- Examine how the nursing crisis within the Developmentally Disability field has impacted families.
- Provide a report that can be shared with agencies and policy makers that provides potential ways that the workforce shortage within the field of DD home care nursing can be addressed so that Ohio can increase its preparation for additional variants of COVID 19 or COVID 19 related issues.
To accomplish this, the research team will conduct surveys and focus groups that will address the following:
- People’s experience and satisfaction with developmental disability home care nursing services.
- Possible benefits of using home care nursing services for individuals with developmental disabilities.
- Possible disadvantages of home care nursing services for individuals with developmental disabilities.
- Possible improvements to be made to home care nursing services for individuals with developmental disabilities.
- Learn about the potential barriers to attracting/keeping nurses to joining the home care workforce working with individuals with developmental disabilities
Once we have collected the information from our proposed surveys and focus groups, we will analyze these data for themes, identify the potential barriers that exist, and formulate a report that refers to recommendations on how to remedy the current nursing workforce shortage in Ohio.
Project Team:
- Marc J. Tassé, PhD, PI, Director Nisonger Center, Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry. OSU.
- Stephanie Hosley, MS, RN, CPNP-PC, Clinical Assistant Professor, LEND Nursing Faculty Coordinator. OSU
- Mackenzie Burness, Clinical Research Coordinator, Nisonger Center. OSU
- Christine Brown, Clinical Research Assistant, Self-Advocate, Nisonger Center. OSU
This project was supported, in part by the Ohio Developmental Disabilities Council, under grant number 2201OHSCPH from the U.S. Administration for Community Living, Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, D.C. 20201. Grantees undertaking projects with government sponsorship are encouraged to express freely their findings and conclusions. Points of view or opinions do not, therefore, necessarily represent official ACL policy.
For more information about this project, please contact:
Mackenzie Burness, Clinical Research Coordinator, Mackenzie.Burness@osumc.edu or 614-366-4647
Resources:
A Guide to Nursing Services in Ohio
Article: Satisfaction and Scalability During the Nurse Staffing Crisis