Colorado’s Looming Healthcare Crisis: 10,000 Nurses Needed by 2026

Healthcare statistics in Colorado continue to show a predicted shortfall of 10,000 registered nurses and 54,000 allied health professionals such as medical and nursing assistants by 2026.

This comes at a time when the population of Colorado continues to age and will need more healthcare services, and aging nurses are retiring or leaving the profession after COVID-19 pandemic stresses. The U.S. labor market study by consulting firm Mercer forecast Colorado will be the third-worst state in shortages of registered nurses behind Pennsylvania and North Carolina in 2026.

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“The healthcare workforce shortage is quite serious and something we’re devoting a lot of energy toward,” said Julie Denning with the Colorado Hospital Association. “In addition to the work every hospital and health system in the state is doing to retain their current workforce and grow the future workforce, CHA is partnering with the state on a number of healthcare workforce initiatives including offering education on workforce wellness, professional development and workforce pipeline growth.”  

Hospitals in the state have invested more than $1 billion since the pandemic to retain and recruit staff, according to the CHA. Hospitals are trying to build the pipeline of employees through tuition reimbursement, student loan assistance, training stipends and professional development programs. 

Increasing pay for existing nurses is happening through incentive bonuses, market and merit increases, and protected pay and emergency relief. After the pandemic, investments in caring for the healthcare workforce is even more important with programs aimed at fostering employee wellness, according to the CHA. 

“Health care workers are burned out from the pandemic and are experiencing increasing rates of violence from patients and their families, spurring many to leave the profession,” Denning said.  

Shortages of nurses is not a new problem due to such factors in recent years as economic downturns, waves of retiring nurses and increased health care demand, according to the American Nurses Association.  

“As the pandemic hit in March 2020, nurses, who represent the largest group of healthcare professionals in the country, already were under strain due to factors such as retirements outpacing new entrants to the field, increased demand for health care from aging and chronic disease populations, and inadequate workforce support,” according to the nurses’ association. 

Leaders at nursing programs such as Colorado Mountain College and Colorado Northwestern Community College say their students are offered jobs even before they graduate or pass their certification exams.

School of Nursing Dean Whitney Erickson at Colorado Mountain College said several key factors contribute to the state’s ongoing inability to graduate enough nurses to fill future needs, including a shortage of nursing instructors who are required to have a master’s degree in the field. Plus, most higher-level nurses make less money teaching than working at a hospital.  

“Most nursing schools are having a hard time hiring faculty,” Erickson said. 

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Smaller hospitals have limited spaces for nursing students to complete their required clinical nursing rotations. For the CMC nursing programs in Breckenridge, Steamboat Springs and Spring Valley near Glenwood Springs, the students may travel to the Front Range or Grand Junction to complete clinical rotation hours, which adds to education costs and inconvenience. 

“There is a real sense of burnout from working with a student all the time,” Erickson said of the challenge of hospital preceptors accepting nursing students. “Instead of just taking care of patients, you are trying to teach too.”  

Several nursing schools including CMC and Metropolitan State University of Denver are working to increase nursing student capacity by adding more or larger high-tech simulation labs where nursing students can earn up to half of their required clinical hours. 

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Erickson points to a bright spot in funding through the Colorado Rural Health Care Initiative. The initiative works with 15 participating institutions to increase the number of healthcare graduates who serve in rural counties through measures ranging from housing assistance to scholarships to rural-oriented classroom curricula. 

State leaders approved funding in 2022 for the Care Forward Colorado program for zero-cost, short-term training programs at community and technical colleges. Students who enroll in cooperating programs in fields ranging from certified nursing assistant to phlebotomy technician have tuition, fees and course materials covered as funding allows. 

Ingrid Johnson, CEO at the nonprofit Colorado Center for Nursing Excellence, said “grow your own” programs are expanding, starting as early as high school with medical prep classes. For example, students at Cherry Creek Innovation Campus can learn to be certified nursing assistants while in high school. Colorado State University Pueblo recently was awarded $1.39 million to create a Partners Leading Advancement in Nursing Track, or PLANT, to grow pathways for southern Colorado students to earn a nursing degree. 

Hospital systems also are enticing health-care employees to attend nursing school if students promise to return to work for the hospital, in general for two years for every year of nursing school paid. 

Still, deans at multiple Colorado nursing schools say they do not have enough staff and infrastructure to accommodate all the interested nursing students. The deans say more targeted funding is needed to increase the number of nursing professors and to provide stipends for nursing preceptors in hospitals to accept students.  

Suzie C. Romig is a freelance journalist who has lived in Colorado since 1991. Her byline has appeared in newspapers and magazines across the state on topics ranging from small businesses to raising children to energy efficiency. She can be reached at [email protected]