Why was a study needed on foreign-educated nurses working the United States?
A. We really didn’t know a lot about the process — where people were coming from, how long the recruitment process took, how much it cost to bring the nurses in and what the nurses experience coming into the United States. We do know that for many years, we’ve had cyclical shortages of nurses around the world and certainly throughout the United States. In the past, we’ve frequently filled the gap with foreign-educated nurses. Q. Do you see this trend of foreign-born nurses continuing? A. Yes, the projected gap of nurses is increasing. That’s largely because nurses are retiring at a very high rate at the same time that baby boomers are getting older, putting a greater demand on the health care system. The average age of nurses right now is in the mid-50s. There are various estimates for how many nurses we will need. By 2020, there are estimates that we’ll need 800,000 to 1 million new nurses. Q. What is the general process of recruiting nurses from other countries to work in America? A
