July 17, 2007— Nurses are the backbone of the health industry, caring for patients 24 hours a day, but the U.S. is facing a dire shortage of these professionals.
According to a report released last week by PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Health Research Institute, the U.S. will be short nearly one million nurses by 2020 due to many variables, including retirement. However, accredited online nursing degrees can help fill the void of leadership roles in the nursing industry quickly and effectively.
ELearners.com, which connects prospective students with online learning providers, offers more than 300 accredited online health and medical degrees, including nursing degrees that can help educate healthcare practitioners across the country.
Career advancement is often only possible for nurses who hold a bachelor’s and/or master’s degree, so many professionals are turning to the Internet to get the education they need to fill vacancies left by retiring nurses. A Nursing Management Aging Workforce Study found 55% of nurses plan to retire between 2011 and 2020. Right now U.S. hospitals are already 118,000 registered nurses short, according to the American Hospital Association.
Despite the demand to enter the nursing industry, the lack of educational resources at brick-and-mortar nursing colleges is hindering progress to addressing the shortage.
According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, U.S. nursing schools turned away almost 43,000 qualified applicants in 2006.
ELearners.com offers more than 50 online nursing degrees ranging from an Associate of Applied Science in Nursing to a Nursing Ph.D. Some of the highest paid fields in nursing require at least a master’s degree including nurse anesthetists, nurse practioners and nurse midwives. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the median salary for a nurse is $52,330 with the highest 10 percent earning more than $74,000 a year.
To help answer the many questions people have about studying online, eLearners.com has created the “Mini-Guide to Online Nursing”. The guide answers questions such as:
-Is an online nursing degree right for me?
-What courses will I take in an online nursing degree?
-What will I learn in an online nursing degree?
-What careers in nursing will I be ready for?
For more information: eLearners.com
April 12, 2024 
