Compose a 1500 words assignment on the current nursing shortage/opportunities for life long learning and workforce development. Needs to be plagiarism free! Along with current trends in nurses retiring and leaving the profession, nursing shortage of about one million nurses will be experienced by the end of 2019 (ANA, 2011). There are several reasons why this trend is being seen in the nursing profession. For one, the current nursing population is aging rapidly. Based on 2004 reports, the average age of nurses was pegged at 46.8 years of age. Noticeably, even as overall employment for RNs increased significantly since 2001, most of the growth was attributed to nurses over 50 years or to foreign-born nurses. In the next few decades, nurses will continue to age with the largest population of nurses in the 50 to 60 age range (ANA, 2011). By the year 2020, their numbers are set to be the same size as today, falling to about 20% the projected workforce requirements. Nursing shortages have a disastrous effect on the delivery of patient care because it compromises the quality of care administered to patients. As was demonstrated above, nursing shortages are rampant in most hospitals today, most especially in acute care, and long-term care settings (Goodin, 2003). Various factors contribute to this shortage, with some of these factors attributed to baby boomers nearing retirement and with some factors attributed to women seeking other work opportunities. With most women now opting for other more glamorous professions, the number of new and younger nurses has been expected to decrease. Even as older students enter into nursing school, the age of new nurses also increases and their number of years in the practice decreases. Moreover, there are still lesser males and racial minorities in the nursing practice. The shortage in nurses being experienced in the US is seen to be a much more significant shortage as compared to previous shortages (Goodin, 2003). Analysts claim that this shortage cannot be remedied by short-term strategies which may have worked before. Nevertheless, the current shortage is set to increase salaries and work flexibilities for nurses. Improvements in the nursing profession are set to impact on recruitment. These improvements include increase in opportunities for practical nurses, use of information technology, and the recruitment of skilled nursing professional (Goodin, 2003). In order to implement these improvements, nursing education has been set to coordinate with the health care industry in order to develop effective solutions for nursing shortage – with a focus on recruiting students and campaigning in the media to boost the image of the nursing profession (Goodin, 2003). The health care industry has presented with various unmet needs in recent years. and the nursing shortage has not helped the situation in any way. Nurse managers are in need of strong management skills and in terms of managing both the administrative and the financial end of health care delivery (Gullatte, 2005). In most cases, the financial situation of the health care industry has been worsened by the current health crisis and acute care institutions have been affected most by financial difficulties. In order to improve the management of these issues, nursing educational institutions have been called on to resolve and work around these issues. The need to introduce developments in the nursing workforce has been pointed out by various experts. Since there is a nursing shortage, the existing workforce must be adept in facing the different health issues which present among their patients.