1. Connecticut League for Nursing & The Connecticut Center for Nursing Workforce
Aligning Data to
Mobilize
YOUR Stakeholders
Welcome! As Executive Director for the CLN and the CCNW, our organization has been capturing and sharing nursing data since Just to update you……there is NO entity in Connecticut that proactively looks at nursing data to support statewide nursing workforce planning, so in 2013, CLN filled that Vacuum and formally became the CT Nursing Workforce Center to do this work with NO outside funding to support us.
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2. Number of Faculty Needed to Teach our Student Nurses
The original data that we captured focused on Nursing Education Data so we could learn about the students within our educational “pipelines” and the faculty who taught them. A Nurse Faculty Shortage was LOOMING and we wanted to help our members PREPARE. WITHOUT Faculty, WHO would TEACH our students? We had hoped by publishing this information and sharing it statewide that all NURSING and HEALTHCARE STAKEHOLDERS would MOBILIIZE and COME RUNNING to HELP US. However, this WAS not the case.
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3. Compensation for CT Nurses
1,038 Nursing faculty are educating 10,962 students
and in 2016 graduated 3,120 students across all educational levels.
$72,700 mean annual salary for CT RNs (excludes salaries over $300,000.
Upon graduation, an entry level salary for a new nurse is approximately $55,000 to $60,000. That individual will become a positive contributor to the healthcare workforce and a tax-paying professional, we could not understand why Connecticut’s Healthcare and Workforce Development Stakeholders were NOT responding and offering to help us learn more about this looming Nursing Faculty issue! It was ONLY perceived as a “Nursing Problem”.
55% of CT Nurses hold a Baccalaureate degree or higher.
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4. Total Number of Nursing Students in the Education Pipeline
10,962 nursing students in CT Nursing programs across all levels
LOOK at ALL the Student Who are in our nursing PIPELINE at the LPN, RN and Post-Licensure levels! We know that our state continuously needs nurses at all levels as they readily hire graduates from our schools & programs on an annual basis. Why would our stakeholders NOT assist us to support a nurse faculty development initiative so we can maintain the number of graduates each year?
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5. Total Number of Nurses Caring for Connecticut Residents
61,832 Active Registered Nurse Licenses in CT*
*not necessarily reflecting practicing nurses
Publishing our Nursing EDUCATION Data was NOT enough for CT Stakeholders to Mobilize! Yet, a representative from RWJF learned of what we were doing and reached out to invite us to join the National FORUM of State Nursing Workforce Centers. This Affiliation gave CLN ACCESS to go BEYOND just collecting nursing EDUCATION data. We were able to access national SAMPLE DATA on the SUPPLY of Nurses in CT! Our story began to take shape and we began to MOBILIZE our data in a new way. Look at the Number of Licensed Nurses in CT, we are THE largest JOB CATEGORY within CT’s Healthcare Workforce!
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6. Where Do Our Nurses Work?
Academic 5%
Insurance Claims / Benefits 3%
Ambulatory Care 9%
Nursing Home / Extended Care 8%
Assisted Living 2%
Occupational Health
0.4%
Community Health
Policy / Planning Agency
0.2%
Corrections
Public Health
0.9%
Home Health 6%
School Health
Hospital
52%
Other
As you can see, Nurses work in so many settings outside of the hospitals, CLN wanted to make sure that we inform all settings regarding the Supply of Nurses in CT. Moreover, the compensation for the nurse outside of the hospital settings may not be as competitive, so these entities should engage early in Workforce Planning efforts to insure the proper staffing levels to serve their clients, students and customers. Even nurses who DO NOT provide DIRECT PATIENT Care need to hold a valid nursing license.
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7. Educating Connecticut Nurses
Educating Nurses – Pipeline to Practice
3,120
total CT nursing graduates
across all educational levels in 2016
2,203
graduates with 1st nursing degree
1784 RNs and 419 LPNs
917
post-licensure & advanced graduate degrees
including degrees leading to APRN roles
317 RN to BSN
488 Masters
98 DNP (Doctor of Nursing Practice)
10 PhD
10 EdD
1,038
nurse faculty are educating
10,962 students across all educational levels
Educating Connecticut Nurses
So after 8 years of publishing separate Education & Supply Data, we GOT Smarter as to HOW we PACKAGE our DATA! We needed to align our “story” in a way that our Stakeholders could “PROCESS” and Understand that this data DOES impact them. And should Connecticut do nothing to address the EDUCATION and SUPPLY of nurses……Not only would our Nursing FACULTY Shortage continue, but we may not be graduating the number and type of nurses that our healthcare settings need. So our 1st COMBINED report on Nursing Supply and Education Data was launched in 2017.
Pipeline to Practice
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8. 2016 Graduates: Nurse Practitioners Caring for Connecticut Residents
90% of 250 CT Nurse Practitioner Graduates are prepared to provide Primary Care across CT
Nurse Practitioner Graduates Prepared for Primary Care of CT Residents:
128 Family Practitioners: Primary Care NPs 
46 Adult Gerontology: Primary Care NPs 
22 Adult Gerontology: Acute Care NPs
21 Pediatric Primary Care NPs 
27 Psychiatric Mental Health Across Lifespan NPs
In this report, we expanded our partnerships and accessed additional state and national datasets that collect state-specific data to include the Graduate-level nurse. This had been a MISSING PIECE of Data that happened to catch the attention of our stakeholders due to the fact that CT is experiencing a Primary Care Physician Shortage and that the graduates from our Nurse Practitioner Programs would be able to lessen that impact of the Primary Care Physician Shortage as well as increase access to care via group practices and within the many community settings.
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9. Ages of Connecticut Nurses Caring for our Residents
57% of CT RNs are ages 50+
57% of CT RNs are ages 50+ IMPERATIVE TO FILL THE PIPELINE
Once we got the ear of our Stakeholders, we not only HIGHTLIGHTED the annual number of graduates from our nursing schools and programs at all levels, but continued to share the “Age Distribution” of our current Licensed Nurses. Shocking data, as you will note 57% of our CT Nurses are over the age of 50! WE DO NOT have the numbers in the age groups of to backfill those nurses retiring and leaving the practice of nursing through normal attrition. Now who is going to care for our aging baby-boomer residents! PLUS due to the limits on our data, we DO NOT know who is working “AT THE BEDSIDE” providing direct patient care.
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10. Educating Nurses – Pipeline to Practice 2017
TECHNICAL NOTES:
This report is produced by the Connecticut Nursing Collaborative-Action Coalition (CNC-AC) in partnership with The Connecticut Department of Labor Office of Research, The Connecticut Department of Public Health, The Connecticut Center for Nursing Workforce – A program of the Connecticut League for Nursing, University of Connecticut School of Nursing, and Quinnipiac University School of Nursing. CNC-AC is part of the Center to Champion Nursing in America and is funded through a State Implementation Program Grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Data were sourced from 2015 National Nursing Workforce Survey (CT data); the 2016 National Minimum Data Set for Nursing Education (CT data) recommended by the National Forum of State Nursing Workforce Centers and the National Council of State Boards of Nursing; Budden, J.S., Moulton, P., Harper, K.J., Brunell, M.L. & Smiley, R. (2016). The 2015 National Nursing Workforce Survey. Journal of Nursing Regulation, 7(1), S1-S91; and The American Association of Colleges of Nursing, Research and Data Services, 2017.
Nurse Practitioners (NPs) Prepared for Primary Care of CT Residents
2015 CT RN Workforce Survey
Registered Nurse by Age
Over the years, CLN has leveraged its networks to expand its partnerships. One of the most effective partnerships was with the Connecticut Nursing Collaborative- Action Coalition (CNC-AC). We asked that entity to make the collection, analysis and publication of data a TOP priority via a 4-year funded initiative by The Center to Champion Nursing in America- which they did and supported CLN with this work through September It is an ongoing priority to significantly increase our partnerships as we continue this work. We are SO VERY Grateful to all the partners who supported our efforts in 2017 and their names are listed at the bottom of our Report.
Specialty of NPs
# of 2016 Graduates
Family Nurse Practitioner
128
Adult-Gerontology: Primary Care 46
Adult-Gerontology: Acute Care 22
Pediatric: Primary Care 21
Psychiatric: Mental Health across the Life Span 28
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11. Mobilization Realized!
Successes to date:
On an annual basis, CLN captures and publishes data on the EDUCATION Pipelines for the various Nursing Programs as well as the number of Nurse FACULTY needed to teach the students which support our members with education planning efforts;
Every two years, CLN has access to a National SAMPLE for the SUPPLY of Nurses in CT, and currently working with the CT Data Collaborative and the Dept. of Public Health to secure Statewide SUPPLY numbers of ALL Licensed Nurses in CT to inform our stakeholders regarding the SUPPLY of nurses in CT;
Developed active partnerships with state and national organizations to help analyze nursing data to inform workforce planning decisions;
JUST LAST WEEK, CLN engaged all of the CT Healthcare TRADE Associations to support us to define the DEMAND for nurses across settings in CT via implementing a survey instrument with their memberships beginning in December 2017 to identify and forecast potential healthcare & nursing shortage areas!
NOW, THE REAL WORK BEGINS!
Successes to date:
On an annual basis, CLN captures and publishes data on the EDUCATION Pipelines for the various Nursing Programs as well as the number of Nurse FACULTY needed to teach the students which support our members with education planning efforts;
Every two years, CLN has access to a National SAMPLE for the SUPPLY of Nurses in CT, and currently working with the CT Data Collaborative and the Dept. of Public Health to secure Statewide SUPPLY numbers of ALL Licensed Nurses in CT to inform our stakeholders regarding the SUPPLY of nurses in CT;
Developed active partnerships with state and national organizations to help analyze nursing data to inform workforce planning decisions;
JUST LAST WEEK, CLN engaged all of the CT Healthcare TRADE Associations to support us to define the DEMAND for nurses across settings in CT via implementing a survey instrument with their memberships beginning in December 2017 to identify and forecast potential healthcare & nursing shortage areas!
NOW, THE REAL WORK BEGINS!
MOBILIZING WITH DATA |

12. Contact Information:
Marcia B. Proto, M.Ed, CAS Executive Director Connecticut League for Nursing & CT Center for Nursing Workforce 110 Washington Ave., Lower Level North Haven, CT
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