Washington Center for Nursing Releases State Data Snapshots

The Washington Center for Nursing released the 2016 Washington State Data Snapshot report for registered nurses, licensed practical nurses and advanced registered nurse practitioners this month. The data was collected by the University of Washington Center for Health Workforce Studies, with funding from WCN through a grant from the Washington State Department of Health. The report draws on license files, which contain the nurse’s name, mailing address, birthdate and gender.

Key data:

• RNs - Washington state has 68,657 registered nurses who live here and hold active Washington licenses, just slightly down from 68,665 in 2014, and 68,879 in 2013. That translates to about 972 registered nurses per 100,000 people in Washington, which has stayed consistent as well.
• LPNs - The number of licensed practical nurses (LPNs) continues to decline. Currently, Washington has 10,338 LPNs, dwindling by about a thousand each year since reaching a peak of 13,751 in 2008. In 2016, this translates to about 146 LPNs per 100,000 people in Washington.
• The number of ARNPs licensed and living in Washington continues to climb steadily, reaching 5,158 today, from 2,835 in 2004. That is about 73 ARNPs per 100,000 people in Washington, up from 50 per 100,000 in 2006.

WCN notes that the available data is minimal and inconsistent, making it difficult to predict supply and demand of the nursing workforce. Additionally, race and ethnicity data are not currently collected.

The Center is working with partners to improve data collection and consistency by, among other things, pushing for adoption of the Minimum Nursing Data Set, with added questions to capture the unique characteristics of Washington, and surveying all nurses with Washington licenses on the MDS.

View the full Data Snapshots for RNs, LPNs and ARNPs on WCN’s website.