Gov. Ron DeSantis is pledging more money in the coming fiscal year to help grow Florida’s nursing workforce.
The governor says the state has recently approved $130 million for two programs created by lawmakers in 2022 to help graduate more nurses from Florida schools. This funding is in addition to $125 million in each of the previous two fiscal years, bringing the total to $380 million.
Florida is expected to face a significant nursing shortage nearly 60,000 by 2035.
A new report from the Florida Hospital Association shows the total nursing vacancy rate dropped to 7.8 percent this year, down from more than 20 percent just two years ago.
Additionally, the turnover rate is now 17.6 percent, nearly half of what it was in 2022.
DeSantis hopes investing in these programs might help to reverse that course.
“Because of these investments, enrollment in associate of science and nursing programs at our state colleges has increased by 25 percent," he said.
Hospital association president Mary Mayhew agrees, saying continued investments into nursing is essential as the state's population grows.
“The demand for health care in Florida is skyrocketing. We have to have a workforce that is ready to respond to and meet that demand.” she told the News Service of Florida.
DeSantis says more than 1,800 nursing students recently graduated from the state university system, a record amount.
The Florida College System, a network of 28 public colleges, just graduated 7,498 students who completed a nursing program, the most in three years.
The programs are the Prepping Institutions, Programs, Employers and Learners through Incentives for Nursing Education (PIPELINE) and the Linking Industry to Nursing Education (LINE).
PIPELINE and LINE were developed to incentivize and reward collaboration and performance to increase the number of nurses entering the workforce, according to the governor’s office.
