Nearly 40% of Michigan nurses plan to leave job in move experts say could damage health industry

Nearly 40% of Michigan nurses said they intended to leave their job in the next year, according to a new paper out of the University of Michigan's Center for Improving Patient and Population Health.

The vast majority of nurses — 84%, according to researchers — reported emotional exhaustion. A majority of both current nurses and those who have recently left said they considered adequate staffing to be the most common workplace concern.

The survey, conducted in March 2022, asked 9,150 nurses with a Michigan license about their plans for their job. It also asked more than 1,200 who recently left the job why they left.

Results showed that burnout has been running rampant in the profession in the years since the pandemic, particularly for newer nurses.

Barbara R. Medvec, a clinical assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Nursing and the lead author of the study, said the potential cost of losing so many members of the nursing workforce could be difficult not only for those who stay but also for the patients they treat.

"We need to get serious about changing staffing models so that nurses can balance work, home and potentially school while they also have a life," she said. "We need to ensure that we are recognizing emotional exhausting and figuring out ways to mitigate that. When you're leaving it all on the field consistently, it's hard to keep going. ... It's a safety issue for the patient."

She noted that nurses understood the need for mandatory overtime during the worst parts of the pandemic, but the consistent use of it in many medical settings since has pushed people to a breaking point. When nurses are regularly working mandatory overtime, they don't get the chance to relax or take care of themselves.

Nurses have told The Detroit News that while they would miss working with patients, they are reaching a point of being too exhausted to continue.

Across the country, Medvec estimated the country was going to need 100,000 more nurses between now and 2030.

"The estimate is between one and two million years of nursing are retiring every year, nurses with 30 and 40 years of experience," she said. "We absolutely need to keep younger nurses in the practice pool."

But that can be hard when nurses are exhausted, mistreated or even abused by patients, or considering travel nursing, which is typically a type of highly paid contract position where nurses go where they are most needed instead of staying with a single hospital.

The study indicated that 28% of nurses plan to reduce their clinical hours, while 18% plan to pursue travel nursing.

To fix the problem, Medvec — who is a former nursing executive herself — said organizations "need to be serious" about making tangible policy changes to protect nurses. That includes bettering staffing models to allow for better work/life balance, increasing the number of nurses coming in to help get rid of mandatory overtime and also just find an improved way for nurses to disconnect when they are not on the job.

"If we're worn down, if our environments don't allow us to be fully supported, if it's not a safe environment, then it's really hard to make sure that we're delivering the best care to every patient every time," she said. "We want our policy leaders, our health care administrators, all of our nursing leaders to really take a look at this."