Forum addresses country's severe nursing shortage

China has 800,000 fewer nurses than it needs. Even in Shanghai, with 92,000 nurses, nursing professionals cannot meet clinical demand, experts told the first Asian Nursing Forum in Shanghai ahead of International Nurses Day on Wednesday.

Improving talent training and cultivation and further classifying nursing into smaller and more targeted majors are measures that could boost the development of the modern nursing industry, experts said.

“The nursing major in China still lags behind developed countries, and nursing has taken a more important role in treatment outcomes,” said Zhang Yuxia, director of Zhongshan Hospital’s nursing department. “About 30 percent of treatment outcomes stem from doctors while 70 percent are from nurses.”

“During the coronavirus pandemic, nurses have assumed a greater role in patient care and recovery. They are an important force working on the front line,” she said. “Nurses will take on a more important role in digital and intellectual medicine, as a lot of equipment and services are conducted by nurses.”

Experts at the forum discussed topics such as epidemic prevention and control, intellectual nursing, nursing education, patent industrialization and evidence-based nursing.