A new study from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing finds that many nurses who left hospital jobs are ready to return — if hospitals fix unsafe staffing and rigid schedules. The findings suggest the nursing shortage is solvable, not inevitable.
A large share of registered nurses who left hospital jobs in recent years are willing to come back to the bedside — but only if hospitals change how they staff and schedule nurses, new research from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing’s Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research (CHOPR) suggests.
The study, published in the journal JAMA Network Open, challenges the idea that the United States is facing an unavoidable, long-term nursing shortage. Instead, it points to a fixable problem inside hospitals themselves.
The researchers analyzed survey data from 4,043 actively licensed registered nurses who had left direct care hospital positions within the past five years. Some had retired, some were unemployed and some had taken jobs outside of health care altogether.
Even among those no longer working in hospitals, many had recently searched for nursing positions and said they were likely to return to nursing work. Most unemployed nurses had looked for health care jobs in the previous year. About one-quarter of nurses now working outside health care had also searched for nursing roles.
When asked what would make them more likely to return, one answer rose to the top: safe staffing.
“Unsafe staffing drives nurses away from hospital employment – and adequate staffing is the key to bringing them back,” lead-author Karen B. Lasater, the Jessie M. Scott Term Chair in Nursing and Health Policy, an associate professor in the Department of Biobehavioral Health Sciences and an associate director of CHOPR, said in a news release. “The problem and the solution are the same. High nurse turnover is a solvable crisis, because the reasons nurses leave are the same reasons they would return, if addressed.”
Safe staffing typically means having enough nurses on each shift so that workloads are manageable, care is not rushed and patient safety is protected. For years, bedside nurses have warned that chronic understaffing leads to burnout, moral distress and preventable harm to patients. The new study suggests that addressing those conditions is not just about safety — it is also the most powerful tool hospitals have to rebuild their workforce.
Flexible scheduling was the other major factor nurses said would draw them back.
“Nurses are often locked into rigid shift schedules that limit their ability to transition between shifts or chose different work blocks,” added senior author K. Jane Muir, an assistant professor in the Department of Family and Community Health. “Hospitals can reattract an existing nurse workforce by reconsidering these arrangements to remain competitive.”
Traditional 12-hour shifts, rotating days and nights, and limited control over days off can make it hard for nurses to manage family responsibilities, pursue education or simply recover from demanding clinical work. The study’s findings suggest that offering more flexible options — such as different shift lengths, more predictable schedules or easier shift swapping — could make hospital jobs more sustainable for many nurses who have stepped away.
The research also sheds light on why so many nurses retired earlier than they had planned. More than one-third of retired nurses in the study had left the workforce ahead of schedule, even though the vast majority said they were satisfied with nursing as a career.
“The findings suggest premature workforce exits are driven by modifiable organizational issues, not problems with the profession itself,” added coauthor Matthew D. McHugh, the Independence Chair for Nursing Education, a professor of nursing and director of CHOPR. “Warnings about nursing shortages should be treated with caution given the existence of an untapped latent labor force willing to work at the bedside if working conditions were better.”
That “latent labor force” includes experienced nurses whose knowledge is especially valuable for mentoring newer staff and caring for patients with complex needs. The study implies that if hospitals improve working conditions, some of those retired nurses might be willing to return in part-time or flexible roles.
The implications are significant for health systems, policymakers and patients. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many hospitals struggled to staff units, and some relied heavily on expensive travel nurses. At the same time, reports of burnout and moral injury among nurses surged, and headlines warned of a looming, permanent shortage.
This new analysis suggests a different story: many nurses are still in the labor market, licensed and interested in bedside care, but they are waiting for conditions that allow them to practice safely and sustainably.
For hospital leaders, the message is that recruitment and retention strategies need to go beyond signing bonuses and short-term incentives. Investing in better nurse-to-patient ratios and more flexible scheduling could not only improve patient outcomes and staff well-being but also tap into a ready pool of nurses who have already said they would return under better conditions.
For students and early-career nurses, the findings offer a more hopeful view of the profession. The problem is not that nursing itself has lost its appeal, but that many workplaces have not kept pace with what nurses need to do their jobs well and stay healthy.
The study does not prescribe a single staffing model or scheduling system, and more research will be needed to determine which specific changes work best in different hospital settings. But it clearly identifies where hospitals should focus if they want to reverse nursing workforce losses: make staffing safe, make schedules humane and treat nurses’ time and expertise as central to the health care system’s success.