Healthcare leaders have sophisticated calculations to determine the cost of nurse turnover, but there is no model to estimate the societal cost of a nurse leaving the profession, Judy Davidson, DNP, RN, a nurse scientist and associate professor at Columbus-based Ohio State University College of Nursing, said in an op-ed published June 20 in MedPage Today.
“When a nurse leaves the profession due to burnout, disability, trauma, career change, or death/suicide, the loss extends far beyond a single institution,” Dr. Davidson said. “Society loses years of educational investment, clinical expertise, mentorship capacity, workforce productivity, tax contributions and future patient care. Despite ongoing concerns about workforce shortages, nursing has lacked an accepted method for estimating those broader societal costs.”
In a recent study published in Nursing Outlook, Dr. Davidson and her colleagues expanded the empirical RETAIN Framework beyond organizational turnover to examine the theoretical implications of a nurse leaving the profession. Using publicly available information, they analyzed the societal cost of the loss of Alex Pretti, RN, a Minnesota nurse who was killed by federal agents during an immigration crackdown.
“The purpose was not to assign a dollar value to a human life, nor to generate a universal estimate applicable to all nurses,” Dr. Davidson said. “Rather, the case served as an example demonstrating how broader societal costs of nurse loss might be identified, organized, and measured.”
Using the framework, Dr. Davidson found Mr. Pretti’s conservative estimated societal impact exceeded $3.67 million.
“If the societal consequences of losing even a single nurse can reach the magnitude of $3.67 million, then the economic burden of all nurses who leave the profession is far greater than current workforce discussions acknowledge,” she said.
Dr. Davidson called for future research to validate and refine models that calculate the societal impact of a nurse leaving the profession and develop dynamic tools capable of reflecting local workforce conditions.
“Better measurement alone will not solve workforce shortages, burnout, or clinician suicide,” she said. “But it can help policymakers, healthcare leaders, and funding agencies understand the magnitude of what is at stake. If society can estimate the costs of losing nurses from the profession, it becomes easier to evaluate investments in nurse well-being, retention, suicide prevention, and workforce sustainability using the same economic frameworks that guide other major public policy decisions.”
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