Baccalaureate Prepared Nurses Essay

Competency Differences of Baccalaureate and Associate Degree Prepared Nurses
There are three main approaches to entering the nursing field as a registered nurse. The hospital based diploma program has largely gone out of favor; there remains less than 75 diploma programs in the United States (National League for Nursing, 2013). More nurses favor entering the profession via the Associates degree route (38% of the workforce) while nursing administrators want more BSN prepared nurses. Why would administrators want BSN prepared nurses when they come with a higher cost in wages? Why did the IOM recommend increasing the percentage of Baccalaureate prepared nurses in hospitals to 80% (Institute of Medicine, 2010)?
Background
In 2003 a study was published

They identified six common patterns in their data analysis. Three of those patterns show a distinct difference between BSN and ADN nurses. When compared to ADN nurses, BSN nurses perform better in situations requiring intuitive or critical thinking and take a more holistic view of the patient. ADN nurses have more trouble moving out of their ‘thinking comfort zone’. BSN nurses were more likely to engage in evidence based practice and research. They were more likely to share articles and contribute to policy writing than their ADN counterparts. The third difference is while the respondents stated that there was no difference in professionalism between the two groups, they did state that nurses who returned to school took their profession “seriously”. (Leroy, Laplante, Patterson, & deRuyter, 2014) However, the most common pattern that arose from their study was “individual characteristics determining success” (Leroy, Laplante, Patterson, & deRuyter, 2014). That is referring to a subjective perspective on personality or behavior of the individual. In that manner, there may be more qualitative metrics determining a successful nurse than just their educational