Nursing Management Outlook

Nurse Management Opportunities

With so many less experienced nurses entering the marketplace, critical care nurses who know how to provide top-tier service and have excellent people skills are at a premium. These individuals have great opportunities to move up to nursing management roles or become critical care educators. Hospitals will often subsidize these transitions in order to retain a valued employee's services. The hospital benefits from keeping skills and experience in-house, and the employee gets to tackle new challenges.

Upward mobility and nursing management job opportunities within the critical care specialty can take many different forms:

• Floor supervisor
• Director/supervisor of nursing
• Case manager
• Unit manager
• Clinical manager
• Utilization review manager
• Training and education

In addition, nursing knowledge and skills are transferable to a wide range of hospital administrative and nursing management needs. Many nurses transition to new roles in Human Resources, Finance or Operations. Other nursing management job opportunities include labor relations (including leadership roles within unions), healthcare and public health consulting, and a variety of roles within the insurance industry.