"We don't have enough doctors or nurses and nurses practicing," said HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra. "We don't have enough psychologists or counselors to address the rising rates of substance use disorders. We don't have enough midwives, pharmacists and professional caregivers to meet the needs of Americans. We need more."

"The president of Portland State University told me they are turning away qualified, eligible applicants for their nursing program because they don't have enough nursing faculty," Becerra said. "It's tough to lure an experienced nurse practitioner, a licensed practitioner, to teach because they lose so much income."

Recent projections suggesting a surplus of NPs could potentially raise questions about the most effective allocation of resources. More emphasis should be placed on building a pipeline of CNAs to better support the current and future RN workforce.

Without sufficient support from CNAs, RNs become the catch-all for all unmet work by other care team members — both forcing them to work below license and increasing an already high RN workload. Without a sufficient assistive pipeline, RNs are expected to cover all other responsibilities, further exacerbating RN burnout.