Registered nursing was among the fastest growing occupations in the 1990s.  By 2004, the number of employed RNs was 2,464,000—an increase of 55 percent since 1990.

• Nurses:  Vital Signs.  A Brief Overview of the State of the Nursing Profession in the United States.  Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO, 2006.

The Institute of Medicine concluded that the environment in which nurses work is a breeding ground for medical errors which will continue to threaten patient safety until substantially reformed.  The study finds increased infections, bleeding, cardiac and respiratory failure associated with inadequate nurse staffing.

• The Cost and Benefits of Safe Staffing Ratios.  Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO, 2006. 

For each additional patient over four in a nurse’s workload, the risk of death increases by 7 percent for surgical patients.

• The Aiken Study:  Hospital Nurse Staffing and Patient Mortality, Nurse Burnout and Job Dissatisfaction.  Department for Professional Employees, 2003.