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May 6, 2013

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Profile America -- Monday, May 6th. This is National Nurses Day -- kicking off a week honoring the outstanding efforts of nurses in helping to keep Americans healthy. The observance ends next Saturday, the birthday of Florence Nightingale, who established the world's first nursing school in England in the 19th century. In the U.S., there were some 12,000 registered nurses by 1900. Today, that figure is over 2.6 million. As their numbers have grown, so have nurses' responsibilities, keeping up with increasingly complex medical technology. They not only work in the nation's nearly 6,500 hospitals but are on duty in more than 76,000 nursing homes and residential care facilities across the country. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau, online at <www.census.gov>.

Sources: Bureau of Labor Statistics
Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, p. 140
2007 Economic Census, NAICS 622110
http://www.census.gov/econ/industry/hierarchy/i622110.htm
2007 Economic Census, NAICS 623
http://www.census.gov/econ/industry/hierarchy/i623.htm