Help wanted: Nurses needed at nearly all area hospitals USA

The statewide vacancy rate rose from 6.2 to 8.7 percent between 2004 and last year, the institute reported.It's only going to grow worse. As the population ages, more people will seek more medical care while more nurses retire. The average age of registered nurses in the state is 48.

HTML clipboardBy 2020, the state will need 60,000 registered nurses but will have 30,000 to 40,000, according to a 200640,000, according to a 2006 report by the Center for Health Workforce Studies of the University of Washington."We're going to be as bad or worse off if we just do what we're doing right now," said Rhonda Taylor, the nursing program coordinator at Yakima Valley Community College. The industry is trying every trick in the book, including looking overseas.