J&J Launches Nursing Recruitment Campaign
Johnson & Johnson launched a two-year, $20 million campaign this week designed to promote nursing as a career, Newsday reports. Attempting to alleviate the shortage of nurses in U.S. hospitals, which is expected to grow from 126,000 today to more than 400,000 by 2020, the effort includes television advertisements featuring actual nurses that will air in prime time during the Winter Olympics (Phan, Newsday, 2/8). Dubbed "The Campaign for Nursing's Future," the initiative was created with national nursing organizations and includes recruitment brochures, posters and videos for high schools, scholarship funds for nursing students and a Web site(http://www.discovernursing.com) offering information on nursing as a career. Eventually, the campaign will also include efforts to help hospitals retain their nursing staff. Johnson & Johnson Vice Chair James Leneham said, "Nursing professionals are the essential link between 'high-tech' and 'high-touch' and we are determined to help stimulate wider interest in this challenging and rewarding career field" (Johnson & Johnson release, 2/6). Excerpts from the campaign are available at pnm://64.224.17.145/64.226.148.54/nursing.rm. Note: You must have RealPlayer Video to watch the excerpts.
The campaign was developed in response to a survey conducted for Johnson & Johnson by Vanderbilt University researchers that found that 93% of Americans think the nursing shortage "jeopardizes the quality of health care" in the country. The poll, which surveyed 1,005 people, also found that 65% of Americans think the nursing shortage is either a "major problem" or a "crisis" (Johnson & Johnson release, 2/6). However, only 21% of those surveyed said they would consider nursing as a career, and only 10% of men said they would (Newsday, 2/8).
This is part of the California Healthline Daily Edition, a summary of health policy coverage from major news organizations. Sign up for an email subscription.