News Releases

NEONI Leads Project to Develop a Nursing Forecast Model for the State of Louisiana

NEONI’s Vice President Lisa Anderson, MSN, RN, with consultants, Craig Moore, Ph.D. and Cypress Research Group, recently developed the Louisiana Multi-Regional Statewide Nursing Forecast Model, a unique approach to predict the supply and demand for all levels of licensed professional nursing workforce including registered nurses, advanced practice registered nurses and licensed practical nurses.

The Louisiana Multi-Regional Statewide Nursing Forecast Model operates on a series of Excel spreadsheets connected by specific mathematical relationships, which incorporates multiple data bases of information related to nurse licensure, demographics and patient care utilization across multiple settings. Sixteen adjustable settings are embedded within each regional model allowing for hypothetical testing situations based on specific variables. The tool is functional through 2020 and can be updated annually with new licensure data and other relevant data as needed.

The nursing forecast model created for the state of Louisiana is similar in function to the NEONI Nursing Forecaster, a tool that accurately predicts the future nursing workforce needs for the 17-county Northeast Ohio region.

“We were able to leverage our NEONI Nursing Forecaster experience, but one state’s nursing forecast model cannot be utilized by another state because there are so many unique factors and considerations that go into developing a tool like this,” Anderson said. “It’s a specialized methodology. You have to understand the nursing workforce, demographic and economic factors, as well as how the specific population uses healthcare.”

Anderson and the consultants built 27 separate models for Louisiana, which include eight regional models for registered nurses, advanced practice registered nurses and licensed practical nurses as well as a state model for each level of nursing.

A user manual and a technical report, which explains how the nursing forecast model was constructed and provides data source references, were also developed for this project.

“As far as we know, Louisiana is the only state in the country with this level of sophistication to encompass both state and regional data,” Anderson said.

Currently Louisiana is demonstrating its nursing forecast model tool to groups of state organizations engaged in strategic healthcare workforce planning along with healthcare providers and academic nursing programs.

For more information about the Louisiana Multi-Regional Statewide Nursing Forecast Model, contact Lisa Anderson, MSN, RN, vice president of member services, The Center for Health Affairs/NEONI, at 216.255.3660 or lisa.anderson@chanet.org.