Question
The Institute of Medicine (2011) committee on the future of nursing issued a recommendation for 80% of nurses to have a BSN by 2020. There are many arguments for this recommendation. Review the article: Aiken 2014 (Nurse staffing and education and hospital mortality in nine European countries: a retrospective observational study). This study and other research evidence indicate that a workforce of BSN prepared nurses will have lower patient mortality rates than nurses with less than a BSN education.
QUESTION:
What is the current percentage of BSN-educated RNs in the United States? In your home state? What could be done to increase the percentage of BSN-educated RNs at the federal or state level? Who or what entities could promote change?
Answer
Future of Nursing in the United States
According to the recommendation issued by the Institute of Medicine committee on the future of nursing, 80% of registered nurses currently working in the country should have a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) degree by the year 2020 (Cho, Sloane, Kim, Kim, Choi, Yoo, I. …& Aiken, 2014). The aim of the research was to establish whether there is a correlation between the percentage of registered nurses with undergraduate degrees or higher in an institution and the percentage of in-house mortality and preventable deaths. The findings of this research report that a strong correlation exists between the two variables and that in hospitals where there was a large percentage of nurses with a BSN or higher, the mortality rate of patients, as well as preventable deaths in the hospital, was lower. Consequently, the 80% BSN recommendation was made (Cho, Sloane, Kim, Kim, Choi, Yoo, I. …& Aiken, 2014).
Currently in the United States, the percentage of registered nurses with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing stands at 55% (Gorski, Gerardi, Giddens, Meyer & Peters-Lewis, 2015). In North Carolina, it stands at 37% (Aiken, L. H., Clarke, Sloane, Lake &Cheney, 2008). In order to increase the percentage of registered nurses with a BSN to 80% by the year 2020, authorities and stakeholders in the medical sector need to encourage high school students to pursue nursing careers and offer scholarships, grants and financial aid to students willing to pursue a BSN in Nursing. Practicing registered nurses should also be encouraged by the state to pursue Bachelor’s degrees if they have not done soalready. At thefederal level, the entities that could promote change and make this recommendation a reality by the set deadline include the Institute of Medicine (IOM), Council on Physician and Nurse Supply, American Organization of Nurse Executives (AONE), American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), and the National Advisory Council on Nurse Education and Practice (NACNEP) (Cho, Sloane, Kim, Kim, Choi, Yoo, I. …& Aiken, 2014). At the state level, local boards of nursing can be entrusted to carry out this mandate.
References
Aiken, L. H., Clarke, S. P., Sloane, D. M., Lake, E. T. & Cheney, T. (2008). Effects of hospital care environment on patient mortality and nurse outcomes. The Journal of Nursing Administration, 38(5), 223.
Cho, Sloane, Kim, Kim, Choi, Yoo, I. …& Aiken, L (2014). “Nurse staffing and education and hospital mortality in nine European countries: A retrospective observational study.” The Lancet, 383(9931), 1824-1830.
Cho, E., Sloane, D. M., Kim, E. Y., Kim, S., Choi, M., Yoo, I. …& Aiken, L. H. (2015). Effects of nurse staffing, work environments, and education on patient mortality: An observational study. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 52(2), 535-542.
Gorski, M. S., Gerardi, T., Giddens, J., Meyer, D., & Peters-Lewis, A. (2015). Nursing education transformation. AJN The American Journal of Nursing, 115(4), 53-57.
