News Releases

New Tool Predicts Future Supply of, Demand for Nurses in Northeast Ohio Allows Health Care Providers, Nursing Schools to Work Proactively

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:  Deanna Moore, The Center for Health Affairs, 216.255.3614, deanna.moore@chanet.org

The Center for Health Affairs and its workforce initiative, NEONI, along with The Mt. Sinai Health Care Foundation announce the launch of a new tool that will enable the health care community to more accurately predict and plan for its nursing workforce needs. The NEONI Nursing Forecaster brings together hospitals and other health care organizations with schools of nursing to create a prediction of both the supply of and demand for nurses several years into the future. The development of the tool makes Northeast Ohio one of the first regions across the country to utilize a comprehensive regional workforce tool to proactively address nursing workforce needs. 

“The Forecaster helps us to see how the workforce is changing in a way we never have before,” says Lisa Anderson, MSN, RN, vice president for The Center for Health Affairs.  “Instead of a data set that ages as soon as it’s collected, this tool can continually be refreshed to provide a current picture of the workforce,” she says.

The Forecaster, which received funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The Mt. Sinai Health Care Foundation and the M.E. and F.J. Callahan Foundation, was developed by Craig Moore, PhD, a Massachusetts-based economist and former chaired professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, with the assistance of Cypress Research, a local consulting group led by Patricia Cirillo, PhD. 

“This new tool will assess health workforce needs in real time, benefiting patients in the Cleveland region and beyond. As an ‘exporter’ of medical care to people outside of Northeast Ohio, the new tool will also have an economic development impact for Greater Cleveland,” says Mitchell Balk, president of The Mt. Sinai Health Care Foundation.

The Forecaster is unique in several respects:

• It calculates both the number of nurses needed and the number available, and then quantifies the resulting surplus or shortage.
• It is dynamic, meaning users can modify the variables within it and view the projected effects on the supply of and demand for nurses.
• It accounts for factors including the migration of the population, the types of health care services provided, the number of nurses graduating from area schools of nursing, and the number being recruited into the region from elsewhere.
• It uses an “intensity factor” to account for the differences in staffing necessary for patients in various care settings and with varying needs and acuity.
• It encompasses licensed practical nurses (LPNs) and registered nurses (RNs) and can be adapted to include advanced practice nurses (APNs).
• It takes into account the extent to which the region exports health care; that is, the amount of health care services provided to patients who reside outside the region but who come here for care.

One of the tremendous benefits of the Forecaster is its ability to look several years into the future.  It allows hospitals and other health care providers to understand how future staffing availability will affect their strategic plans.

“Before, projections regarding workforce shortages would lag behind in years and we would find ourselves playing catch-up. This tool allows you to look into the future and prepare for it,” says Catherine Koppelman, RN, MSN, NEA-BC, chief nursing officer at University Hospitals and University Hospitals Case Medical Center.  “The model will help individual hospitals to achieve their business plans and to work with schools regarding preceptorships and clinical placements.”

A critically important aspect of the model is that it provides schools of nursing with important information they can use to more concretely predict areas of need and adjust their programs in response

“The most important benefit of the Forecaster is that it is so flexible. It helps us make decisions regarding programming, expand opportunities for students and focus on areas of need,” says Laura Dzurec, PhD, dean of the College of Nursing at Kent State University.

NEONI's Nursing Forecaster is being made available to those organizations that made it possible through the contribution of data.  Users will have to ability to modify variables in order to determine their potential impact on the future nursing workforce supply and demand.

Download the PowerPoint and screenshots from the NEONI Nursing Forecaster Reveal.

Click here to see photos from the NEONI Nursing Forecaster Reveal.

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About The Center for Health Affairs and NEONI

The Center for Health Affairs is the leading advocate for Northeast Ohio hospitals.  Its workforce initiative, NEONI, brings together nursing leaders, clinical agencies, educators and professional organizations to address and seek solutions for healthcare workforce issues in Northeast Ohio. Today, NEONI’s membership includes more than 200 professional nurses representing 74 organizations in 12 Northeast Ohio counties. For more on The Center for Health Affairs and  NEONI, visit www.chanet.org .

About The Mt. Sinai Health Care Foundation

Formed as a result of the 1996 sale of Cleveland’s Mt. Sinai Medical Center and related hospitals, The Mt. Sinai Health Care Foundation is an independent grantmaker affiliated with the Jewish Federation of Cleveland.  The Foundation’s purpose is to assist Greater Cleveland’s organizations and leaders improve the health and wellbeing of the Jewish and general communities now and for generations to come.  For more on The Mt. Sinai Health Care Foundation, visit www.mtsinaifoundation.org .