Jun 5 • General discussion
Burned Out at the Bedside? Why Nurses Are Moving Into AI & Tech
If you've felt like you couldn't take one more shift, you are not imagining it — and you are far from alone.
THE BURNOUT IS REAL (AND IT'S MEASURABLE)
Recent workforce data paints a sobering picture of life at the bedside:
- 43% of nurses say they are likely to leave the bedside within the next year, up from 38% the year before (Nurse.org, 2026).
- - Roughly 40% of nurses report they plan to leave their position, with emotional exhaustion and heavy workloads cited as primary drivers (2024 National Nursing Workforce Survey, Journal of Nursing Regulation, 2025).
- - Nearly 40% of RNs reported an intent to leave the workforce or retire within five years (NCSBN, 2025).
- - New nurses are walking away early too — turnover within the first two years of practice runs as high as 33% (OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 2024).
Understaffing, unsustainable patient loads, and chronic stress aren't personal failures. They're systemic — and your body and mind keeping score is a normal response to an abnormal environment.
WHERE NURSES ARE GOING: AI & HEALTH TECH
Here's the hopeful part. The same clinical judgment, pattern recognition, and patient empathy that made you a great nurse are in HIGH demand in the tech world — especially as AI reshapes healthcare:
- Health information technologist roles are projected to grow 15% from 2024 to 2034, much faster than the average occupation (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025).
- - Nursing informatics employment is projected to grow ~24% from 2022 to 2032, fueled by AI and electronic health records (Research.com, 2026).
- - 60% of nurse informaticists now earn over $100,000 — up from 33% in 2017 (HIMSS Nursing Informatics Workforce Survey, 2022).
- - AI is actively creating NEW roles in nursing informatics and clinical decision support, and nurses are uniquely positioned to fill them (PMC/NIH, Nashwan et al., 2025).
WHY YOUR SKILLS TRANSFER
Nurses already do the hard part: translating messy human reality into structured data, advocating for safety, and spotting what doesn't add up. Clinical informatics, healthcare data analytics, UX research, and AI-safety roles all need exactly that lens. Your license isn't the ceiling — it's the launchpad.
YOUR TURN
If you're sitting with the question "is there life after the bedside?" — the data says yes, and the door is wide open. Drop a comment: are you burned out, curious about tech, or already making the leap? Let's build the bridge together.
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References:
- Nurse.org (2026). "43% of Nurses Want to Leave the Bedside."
- 2. Smiley et al. (2025). 2024 National Nursing Workforce Survey, Journal of Nursing Regulation.
- 3. NCSBN (2025). Research on RN/LPN intent to leave the workforce.
- 4. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing (2024). RNs Leaving in the First Two Years.
- 5. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2025). Health Information Technologists & Medical Registrars, Occupational Outlook Handbook.
- 6. Research.com (2026). Fastest-Growing Careers for Nursing Informatics.
- 7. HIMSS (2022). Nursing Informatics Workforce Survey.
- 8. Nashwan et al. (2025). "The evolving role of nursing informatics in the era of AI," PMC/NIH.
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Burned Out at the Bedside? Why Nurses Are Moving Into AI & Tech
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