We continue our month long look into Hawaii’s health care issues. Health care professionals agree, not only is there a nursing shortage now, but it’s only going to get worse. Many predict by the year 2020, as nurses retire and baby boomers age, we will reach a critical shortage. “I think our challenge is looking at our nurses in different specialty areas and the fact that we have an aging nursing workforce. And our aging population in Hawaii,” said Queen’s Nursing Vice President Cindy Kamikawa. “Last year alone, we were short 960 nurses by the the year 2020, we can be short more than 2500 nurses in the state of Hawaii. That’s huge,” said Kaiser Chief Nursing Executive Suzann Filleul.Given this frightening forecast both Queens and Kaiser are proactive about retaining and recruiting nurses. Read more