Oct 25, 2026 · 33 min · 10 segments
Send us Fan Mail Who will care for the next generation of NICU babies? Daphna and Christa sit down with Colleen Reiley Moss and Jessica Meneses…
I know that you are especially interested in solving the workforce crisis.
I guess let's start with, like, what's the problem? What do we have to fix? Okay.
So we are a very small percentage of the total APRN workforce, less than 2% of the advanced practice nurse practitioner workforce comprised of neonatal nurse practitioners.
And when you look at the increasing demand as far as the number of neonatal intensive care units that are opening, the number of infants that are being admitted to NICUs that are requiring complex care, And then just the acuity of those babies, increasing acuity down to, you know, 22, even 21 weeks gestation, depending on where you're at, has really significantly increased the demand for exceptional, skilled, educated providers.
And so looking at the numbers of students that we are graduating each year compared to the demand, we are greatly lacking.
And there's just, there's a small number of NMP programs that I'll let Colleen kind of address too, but we need more NMPs.
And so, And we also need to find ways that once they become NMPs to keep them in that role and to add longevity, because there are a lot of NMPs who have been educated and who start work and who end up leaving the bedside, whether it's stress or burnout or not having a solid foundation of people around them to support and to mentor them and to help them make that transition.
I think there's multiple facets where we can try to start hopefully addressing the problem.
Another one is even once we get nurses into the NMP programs, they can't get access to clinical sites.
But, you know, PA students were competing with residents and other programs.
And there's a really huge gap in knowledge regarding what we do from a healthcare organization standpoint.
And so we're really trying to figure out ways to have those conversations where we can get students even just into the hospital systems to train, you know, to educate them and to teach them how to do what we do.
I know that you are especially interested in solving the workforce crisis.
I guess let's start with, like, what's the problem? What do we have to fix? Okay.
So we are a very small percentage of the total APRN workforce, less than 2% of the advanced practice nurse practitioner workforce comprised of neonatal nurse practitioners.
And when you look at the increasing demand as far as the number of neonatal intensive care units that are opening, the number of infants that are being admitted to NICUs that are requiring complex care, And then just the acuity of those babies, increasing acuity down to, you know, 22, even 21 weeks gestation, depending on where you're at, has really significantly increased the demand for exceptional, skilled, educated providers.
And so looking at the numbers of students that we are graduating each year compared to the demand, we are greatly lacking.
And there's just, there's a small number of NMP programs that I'll let Colleen kind of address too, but we need more NMPs.
And so, And we also need to find ways that once they become NMPs to keep them in that role and to add longevity, because there are a lot of NMPs who have been educated and who start work and who end up leaving the bedside, whether it's stress or burnout or not having a solid foundation of people around them to support and to mentor them and to help them make that transition.
I think there's multiple facets where we can try to start hopefully addressing the problem.
Another one is even once we get nurses into the NMP programs, they can't get access to clinical sites.
But, you know, PA students were competing with residents and other programs.
And there's a really huge gap in knowledge regarding what we do from a healthcare organization standpoint.
And so we're really trying to figure out ways to have those conversations where we can get students even just into the hospital systems to train, you know, to educate them and to teach them how to do what we do.
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