Differences in Competencies between Nurses Prepared at the Associate-Degree Level versus the Baccalaureate-Degree Level in Nursing



Differences in Competencies between Nurses Prepared at the Associate-Degree Level versus the Baccalaureate-Degree Level in Nursing

Introduction

Past three years have seen an ongoing battle between BSN and ADN degrees of nursing, which is becoming ugly and it has created a hypocritical situation in the healthcare sector. Currently, the country is suffering from skilled nursing services, but the clash of competencies among ADN and BSN degrees seems never ending battle of academic discipline, which is also affecting the public and private health sector performance. The prime cause of differing opinion between the two degrees of the nursing profession is the level of quality and care expertise offered by the students of these degrees (Benner, 2009).

This conflict was severely burnt out by the recent publication in the AMA's journal, which has linked the rate of hospital deaths with the education level of nurses. Findings of the study have suggested that quality of patient care can be significantly improved by hiring nursing professionals with BSN degree rather than an associate degree holder of two years program or a nurse with hospital diploma of three years. These findings were empirically supported with the research study conducted by Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research of the University of Pennsylvania that has found a link between lower mortality rate and highly educated nursing professionals. According to this study, hiring highly educated nurses can help hospitals to reduce the failure rate by providing quality care to patients.

Ready to Rumble

The research study was conducted by revewing the data collected from 168 patients of Pennsylvania hospitals and data interpretation suggested twice high death rate of surgery patients in the presence of lower percentage of BSN graduates. These findings of the study were applauded and well supported by the AACN:

In a hospital, failure to rescue and risk of death patient can be reduced by 5% if there is a 10% increase in the fraction of BSN graduate nurses.

In a hospital with 60% BSN graduate nurses, failure to rescue patient health and mortality can be observed 19% lower that a hospital, which has recruited only 20% nurses with such level of qualification.

There is a forecast of 17.8% fewer deaths per 1, 000 surgical patients if the percentage of BSN nurses across all hospitals is mounted to be 60% instead of 20%.

If BSN nurses were comprised 60% ...