With the scarcity of qualified nurses in the health field a growing number of unlicensed nurses are finding jobs.  The salaries and type of jobs of unlicensed nurses obviously varies significantly.  Local laws and regulations may determine what type of jobs unlicensed nurses may hold, but in some places the lack of regulations on who can be labeled a ‘nurse’ is striking.  Nurse managers should become well versed in how this affects their staff and what type of tasks unlicensed nurses are qualified, and allowed, to perform.  The salary of licensed nurses, invariably, is higher but their duties are more significant and carry much more responsibility.

Nursing jobs, including home health aids, numbered 2.6 million in the United States in 2006.  The largest subset of this number are nursing aids who make up over 60 percent of all nurses in the field.  The total number of home health aids is just over three-quarters million people.  This fields seems set to have the most growth in the upcoming years.  Contrary to what many believe, only 29 percent of this field work in hospitals.  The rest work in nursing care facilities.  These numbers obviously mean similar distribution for where you find nursing managers.  Those with hospital experience may find an open nurse manager job not in a hospital, but in some other residential care or nursing facility.

Recent studies have demonstrated that difficulty of East Asian and South Asian nurses in transitioning to manager role. Usually honored for their respectfulness, diligence, and loyalty, some of these characteristics do not translate well into being a ‘manager.’ This is the case for hospital administrators in the US and India. Many Indian hospitals are using US-trained managers and trainees to teach new nurse managers how to think independently as opposed to following a guideline or directive. Culturally, this is much easier for second generation (and beyond) Americans.

Here is an example of what a job as a clincal nurse manager may look like.

The Clinical Nurse Manager is directly responsibility for his or her assigned department. The Clinical Nurse Manager is accountable for all duties, 24 hours, 7 days a week.  This includes: clinical supervision, staffing and scheduling.  Also, a key component is aiding in the hiring and evaluating of personnel.  Nurse managers are seen as a clincal resource for all RNs and, of course with this, are comfortable with all RNs roles and duties as well.

As the name suggests, a case management nurse is a qualified nurse who manages specific patient cases. A Case Management Nurse focuses mainly on planning and managing all aspects of patient care and services for her assigned cases. This ensures will facilitate and coordinate all aspects of health care required by their patients for a complete and speedy recovery.
A case management nurse will work will the patient and his family to fulfill the following objectives:
• Help the patient and the families understand all aspects of the care required and have reasonable goals and expectations from the outcome of the treatment.

• Assess and monitor the progress of the patient from the given treatment.
• Ensure coordination and continuation between different kinds of treatment from different health professionals
• Ensure availability and coordination of any care or service required by the patient in the course of their treatment.
• Educate the patient and the family in their form of affliction and help avoid recurrence, if possible and provide medical information to help them understand the patient’s condition, chances of recovery, etc.

On the other hand, case management nurses do not make diagnoses themselves, nor do they personally recommend any form of treatment. This is done by qualified health experts like surgeons, physicians, medical specialists, etc. However, once the diagnosis is complete and the form of treatment decided upon, a case management nurse will work in close collaboration with the patient’s family and health care professionals to coordinate and manage all aspects of that patient’s care. Their role is to primarily ensure that the patient gets the correct treatment required and to assess their condition and monitor their recovery.

The services of a case management nurse are required in long term treatment that requires a lot of coordination. For example, in the case of a cancer patient, the progress needs to be monitored continuously for any developing complications and different aspects of the treatment like chemotherapy, radiation therapy, surgery, etc. have to be coordinated in a timely manner.

Human Resources Directors and Nursing Directors often ask where should they post their job listings for nurse managers.  The main spot that I recommend is Yahoo Hotjobs.  The main reason: Yahoo! HotJobs Resume Search – 10% off for a limited time! The key here is the site will help you find the right employee rather than waiting for the right nurse manager prospect to find you.  This is a competitive field and you hiring managers need to take the initivative and go beyond posting nurse manager positions

Nursing jobs remain incredibly available, despite the current and projected economic downturn.  Indeed, nursing careers from entry level RNs to nurse manager jobs, the industry is robust.  According to a new book released by JIST publishing, nursing is one of the top 150 recession proof jobs.  Good to hear!

Ok, so what everyone wants to know is how much are nurse managers making these days?  These jobs seem to be in high demand among nurses, but nurses are in high demand themselves so it’s all relative.  Anyway, the average nurse manager salary is $85,000.  The 75th percentile isn’t all that much higher at around $94,000 and the lowest quartile is at $77,000.  If you are entering this job, you may want to take that 25%-75% as a benchmark for salary negotiations.

Upgrading your nursing experience to management level may sound really appealing.  The additional prestige, money, and level of work sounds like a great thing.  The one thing that all nurses, at any level, must be cautious of is the expanding duties in each role.  Nurse manager jobs have been especially overburdened of late.  This trend will obviously increase as public funding to hospitals dries up and budgets are slashed.  It is not uncommon for a nurse manager to oversee 100-150 licensed and unlicensed employees.  The on-call duties of a nurse are 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.  These are the basics.  The difficulties come in when we began talking about managing staff expectations, emotions, motivation, personal issues, and more.  Despite all of the challenges and the threat of ever increasing duties, most RNs feel like this is nothing new to them and welcome the possibility.