Comparison of nursing: China and the United States

Abstract

Nursing in China and the United States was compare with special emphasis on nurse supply, demographic characteristics of nurses, educational programs, and staffing patterns and levels. In China, there were a total of 18,703 hospitals with 2,445,012 beds compared 5,756 hospitals with 946,997 beds in the United States. There are 1.05 nurses per 1,000 population in China as contrasted with 9.37 in the United States. In terms of staffing levels in acute care hospitals, a comparison of two similar surgical and ICU patient care units in each country revealed a lower ratio of nurses to patients, particular at night, in China. Both countries are challenged by issues of cost and quality of health care and both report current and anticipated future shortages of nurses with China being much more severe. Given these facts, the idea of recruiting Chinese nurses to the United States is ill advised.