Acute Care Nurses
Health ScienceO*NET 29-1141.01United States
Provide advanced nursing care for patients with acute conditions such as heart attacks, respiratory distress syndrome, or shock. May care for pre- and post-operative patients or perform advanced, invasive diagnostic or therapeutic procedures.
- Median annual earnings
- $97,284
- Projected change
- +8.7%
- Typical education
- Bachelor's degree
- Employment
- 3.47M jobs
50th percentile, United States
2025 to 2035
66.7% of the workforce
Growing to 3.77M by 2035
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The work
What acute care nurses do
Tasks reported for this occupation, ordered by how often they come up in the role.
- Discuss illnesses and treatments with patients and family members.
- Diagnose acute or chronic conditions that could result in rapid physiological deterioration or life-threatening instability.
- Perform emergency medical procedures, such as basic cardiac life support (BLS), advanced cardiac life support (ACLS), and other condition-stabilizing interventions.
- Assess urgent and emergent health conditions, using both physiologically and technologically derived data.
- Set up, operate, or monitor invasive equipment and devices, such as colostomy or tracheotomy equipment, mechanical ventilators, catheters, gastrointestinal tubes, and central lines.
- Document data related to patients' care, including assessment results, interventions, medications, patient responses, or treatment changes.
- Manage patients' pain relief and sedation by providing pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic interventions, monitoring patients' responses, and changing care plans accordingly.
- Interpret information obtained from electrocardiograms (EKGs) or radiographs (x-rays).
- Obtain specimens or samples for laboratory work.
- Administer blood and blood product transfusions or intravenous infusions, monitoring patients for adverse reactions.
- Perform administrative duties that facilitate admission, transfer, or discharge of patients.
- Collaborate with members of multidisciplinary health care teams to plan, manage, or assess patient treatments.
- Assess the needs of patients' family members or caregivers.
- Participate in patients' care meetings and conferences.
- Treat wounds or superficial lacerations.
- Read current literature, talk with colleagues, and participate in professional organizations or conferences to keep abreast of developments in acute care.
- Provide formal and informal education to other staff members.
- Collaborate with patients to plan for future health care needs or to coordinate transitions and referrals.
- Analyze the indications, contraindications, risk complications, and cost-benefit tradeoffs of therapeutic interventions.
- Distinguish between normal and abnormal developmental and age-related physiological and behavioral changes in acute, critical, and chronic illness.
- Assess the impact of illnesses or injuries on patients' health, function, growth, development, nutrition, sleep, rest, quality of life, or family, social and educational relationships.
- Participate in the development of practice protocols.
- Assist patients in organizing their health care system activities.
Pay and outlook
What the job pays and where it is heading
Annual earnings range
Reported earnings by percentile, United States
- 10th percentile
- $68,460
- 25th percentile
- $79,944
- 50th percentile
- $97,284
- 75th percentile
- $112,340
- 90th percentile
- $138,278
The gold marker shows the median. Half earn more than $97,284 and half earn less.
Employment outlook
2025 to 2035 projection
+8.7%faster than average
20253,471,661 jobs
2035 projected3,774,431 jobs
302,770 more positions over the decade, before replacement hiring.
Preparation
Education levels
What people currently working in the career hold. These are not entry requirements.
- Bachelor's degree
- 66.7%
- Associate degree
- 19%
- Master's or Professional degree
- 9.5%
- Doctoral degree or more
- 4.8%
Skills
Skills employers ask for
Technical skills appearing most often in job postings for this occupation.
How the work gets done
Core competencies
Broad capabilities associated with strong performance in this occupation.
- Reading Comprehension
- Understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work-related documents.
- Service Orientation
- Actively looking for ways to help people.
- Critical Thinking
- Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions, or approaches to problems.
- Speaking
- Talking to others to convey information effectively.
- Social Perceptiveness
- Being aware of others' reactions and understanding why they react as they do.
- Active Learning
- Understanding the implications of new information for both current and future problem-solving and decision-making.
- Monitoring
- Monitoring/Assessing performance of yourself, other individuals, or organizations to make improvements or take corrective action.
- Active Listening
- Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
- Writing
- Communicating effectively in writing as appropriate for the needs of the audience.
- Coordination
- Adjusting actions in relation to others' actions.
- Judgment and Decision Making
- Considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most appropriate one.
- Complex Problem Solving
- Identifying complex problems and reviewing related information to develop and evaluate options and implement solutions.
- Instructing
- Teaching others how to do something.
- Time Management
- Managing one's own time and the time of others.
- Learning Strategies
- Selecting and using training/instructional methods and procedures appropriate for the situation when learning or teaching new things.
- Systems Evaluation
- Identifying measures or indicators of system performance and the actions needed to improve or correct performance, relative to the goals of the system.
- Persuasion
- Persuading others to change their minds or behavior.
- Management of Personnel Resources
- Motivating, developing, and directing people as they work, identifying the best people for the job.
- Operations Monitoring
- Watching gauges, dials, or other indicators to make sure a machine is working properly.
- Systems Analysis
- Determining how a system should work and how changes in conditions, operations, and the environment will affect outcomes.
In the market
Job titles and employers
Recent job postings in United StatesCommon job titles
- 01Progressive Care Unit Registered Nurses3,886 postings
- 02Progressive Care Registered Nurses1,250 postings
- 03Acute Care Registered Nurses484 postings
- 04PACU Registered Nurses418 postings
- 05Telemetry Travel Registered Nurses403 postings
- 06ICU Travel Registered Nurses230 postings
- 07Cardiac Progressive Care Registered Nurses222 postings
- 08Pre-Op/Post-Op Registered Nurses174 postings
- 09Acute Care Nurse Practitioners140 postings
- 10Cardiovascular Intensive Care Registered Nurses137 postings
- 11PACU Travel Registered Nurses115 postings
- 12Medical Surgical Registered Nurses102 postings
- 13PCU/Step Down Travel Registered Nurses94 postings
- 14Emergency Department Registered Nurses88 postings
- 15Clinical Nurses86 postings
- 16Medical Surgical Travel Registered Nurses82 postings
- 17Emergency Services Registered Nurses73 postings
- 18Surgical Oncologists67 postings
- 19Acute Care Nurses48 postings
- 20Pre-Op/Post-Op Clinical Nurses45 postings
Top employers
- 01UCHealth (Colorado)543 postings
- 02Gqr390 postings
- 03Albany Medical Center379 postings
- 04HCA Healthcare372 postings
- 05American Traveler351 postings
- 06Voyage Health & Healing263 postings
- 07Providence230 postings
- 08Soliant Health151 postings
- 09Stability Healthcare146 postings
- 10Covenant Health139 postings
- 11TRS Healthcare133 postings
- 12Ghr Healthcare120 postings
- 13Vetted Health115 postings
- 14Cleveland Clinic114 postings
- 15Travel Nurse Across America113 postings
- 16Atlas Medstaff107 postings
- 17Mercy105 postings
- 18Amergis102 postings
- 19Mission Health101 postings
- 20Premier Medical Staffing Services101 postings
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