Primary Submission Category: Migration
Workforce Development and Nonlinear Nurse Migration: A Regulatory Perspective
Authors:Â Lauren Herckis, Niamh Farrell,
Presenting Author: Niamh Farrell*
Non-linear, multi-national, migration is understudied, particularly the non-linear migration of nurses to the United States and other destination countries around the world. Numerous stakeholders are involved in global health worker migration infrastructure, including practitioners, regulators, and intermediaries, which include educators, migration authorities, and credentials verification and assessment bodies. Nurse migration patterns have been documented from the individual level and from the country level by international organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Exploration of nurse migration is often limited to aggregated country level statistics or individual level information. A regulatory perspective illuminates an often-overlooked part of the healthcare professional’s journey: the credentials verification and assessment process. Understanding global nurse mobility through this lens adds to the conversation surrounding migration patterns, care chain delivery, and the global nursing pipeline.
This project presents results of a reanalysis of credential certification data to unravel non-linear health worker migration patterns to the United States between 2018-2024 and compare how these trends align with global migration patterns outlined by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and nurse migration patterns described by the WHO and OECD. We report professional and demographic practitioner trends during the five-year period including where nurses are initially educated and licensed before they begin their mobility journeys and describe the types of sending, intermediary, and receiving destinations for nurses. This work will further document the landscape of health professional migration to the United States while providing the unique perspective of a migration infrastructure stakeholder that is largely absent from the literature.