Nursing Will Be the Top Occupation in terms of Job Growth through the 2020s

Nursing is one of the fastest growing careers in the world, and at this event, the speakers elaborated on the grounds for such growth.

One reason is the great entrepreneurship potentials in this career. “On average in the world, entrepreneurship in the field of nursing accounts for 3 to 5.3%, and the largest share belongs to the UK (11%)”, stated Dr. Nikbakht, the dean of the TUMS School of Nursing & Midwifery.

Another factor is the growing need for nurses in the next decade. “There will be a growing need for eight million nurses in the world in the next decade. In fact, there is a significant increase in global need for nursing staff, mainly, due to a surge of chronic and aging diseases”, said Dr. Dalvandi, head of the Iranian Nursing Organization, during the Second National Complementary Care Technology and Entrepreneurship Event.

The third factor is the increasing role of nursing in the rapidly changing world of health, as the World Health Organization (WHO) is focusing on universal health coverage and considering the unique role of nurses as health care leaders. These have been good reasons for the WHO to designate the year 2020 as the Year of the Nurse and Midwife.

According to the speakers, there are about 10,000 nursing graduates per year in Iran. These nurses need to move on with the global health care changes such as:

• the shift from the hospital care to the pre-hospital care,

• extensive use of technology, creativity and innovation,

• obtaining practical knowledge and skills about home care products.

By applying these changes, nurses can change the social image of the nursing community.

Nursing training programs need to conform to the constantly changing health care world, and be designed in a way to educate nurses who can meet evolving health care demands, the role of nurses in creating innovative solutions for health care delivery, and ways to attract and retain well-prepared nurses in a variety of settings.