Is the RN--->BSN push a clever way to get older nurses out of the way

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As in certain "Baby Boomers" who wont retire? Wont we NEED a faster RN producing mechanism (hello again, ADN programs!) in order to provide enough nurses to care for this huge group of people due to retire soon?? Just wondering...

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Specializes in PCCN.

who says they are retiring soon? there wont be any social security.I know I'll be stuck working until at least 70. Many of my co workers did retire and are right back working. No one can afford to retire. Unless you're married to a millionaire.

No, I think the bsn thing is for prestige of the hospitals. But since no one has made it mandatory yet, people are going to do what they need to do.

Although I notice more ageism in new hires. But the old farts are there to stay.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Education.

Huh? Can't even imagine any logic behind this argument.

Nope - the 'push' for BSN in acute care is being driven by compelling evidence - higher nurse education levels produce better patient outcomes. Plain and simple. I know, I know - we all know a jillion non-BSN nurses who are just the bee's knees and waaaay better than those snotty BSN grads. But the evidence is based on analysis of aggregate data - not the results of individual nurses.

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Isn't there higher reimbursement if a hospital is magnet?

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Also, plenty of older RNs have BSNs and plenty of younger nurses don't; I haven't seen that phenomenon as particularly age-related.

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Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.

The BSN degree requirement is here partly due to economic conditions and partly due to credential inflation. Certain regional employment markets have too many nurses and too few nursing jobs, so a BSN degree requirement greatly reduces the number of applications through which HR staff must sort. Hospitals weren't demanding BSNs when a true nursing shortage actually existed. In my humble opinion, the BSN degree is somewhat of a weed-out tool.

A minimum BSN degree requirement is also a screening tool for healthcare employers. A baccalaureate degree speaks volumes about one's ability to complete college level coursework with a certain degree of difficulty. The baccalaureate degree also tells employers something about a nurse's perseverance since he/she followed through on something for 4+ years.

I also suspect that the BSN requirement is somewhat of a class-based sorting tool since a university education is a traditional marker of middle class status. Only 30 percent of American adults have earned a bachelor's degree of any kind. Although some people are oblivious, prestige is critical to our higher learning system.

Universities (places where we earn BSN degrees) are situated on top of the prestige hierarchy based on public perception, while community colleges and technical schools (places where we earn ASNs and nursing diplomas) are positioned toward the bottom of the prestige pyramid due to lack of exclusivity. Before anyone gets angry over my post, I have an ASN degree.

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Huh? Can't even imagine any logic behind this argument. Nope - the 'push' for BSN in acute care is being driven by compelling evidence - higher nurse education levels produce better patient outcomes. Plain and simple. I know, I know - we all know a jillion non-BSN nurses who are just the bee's knees and waaaay better than those snotty BSN grads. But the evidence is based on analysis of aggregate data - not the results of individual nurses.
The "compelling evidence" based on analysis of aggregate data is hardly compelling to some intelligent nurses on AN. Several nurses on AN have refuted the design and methodology of various studies, from the sampling procedures and populations studied through the actual methods used in the studies including statistical analysis, conclusions, and generalizability of the findings.
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The "compelling evidence" based on analysis of aggregate data is hardly compelling to some intelligent nurses on AN. Several nurses on AN have refuted the design and methodology of various studies, from the sampling procedures and populations studied through the actual methods used in the studies including statistical analysis, conclusions, and generalizability of the findings.

So in other words the study findings are synthesized "baloney". The hospitals were staffed by diploma nurses for a long time and I am sure patient satisfaction was better back then that now with staff cuts and other issues that reflect in satisfaction, safety and outcomes. Like many have said, is mostly due to economic conditions, surplus of graduates in nursing, and Magnet Status , which probably is as inflated credential as the required BSN for new hires...

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Hello everyone. I am new here. Everything I have read suggests the push for higher degrees is due to better patient outcomes. In my area, the tech school ADN graduates have a 95% job placement rate and that was from a very recent study, so the need for ADNs is still there. However, requiring BSNs is a GOOD thing because the higher the barriers to entry become the pay inevitably gets better. Simple economics. So these hospitals requiring this will discover the day when they have to pay higher wages as a result of raising the barriers to entry. Hence, it's a good thing economically for nurses in the long term.

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Hello everyone. I am new here. Everything I have read suggests the push for higher degrees is due to better patient outcomes. In my area, the tech school ADN graduates have a 95% job placement rate and that was from a very recent study, so the need for ADNs is still there. However, requiring BSNs is a GOOD thing because the higher the barriers to entry become the pay inevitably gets better. Simple economics. So these hospitals requiring this will discover the day when they have to pay higher wages as a result of raising the barriers to entry. Hence, it's a good thing economically for nurses in the long term.

Your statement looks good in paper but the reality is another. The surplus of nursing graduates are pushing the wages down to start with. Second, too many ways to obtain a BSN degree these days, anyone can become one in 15 months with those ABSN programs, no matter if they weren't a science major before. I see a constant surplus of BSN prepared Rn in the future, so wages will be pushed down further. Your wage argument is invalidated by this.

You are new in the forums so you may have not read yet the many threads that cover this subject, but the push is not to improve patient outcomes, is for obtaining magnet status, and to slowly get rid of RN that are on the higher end of the payscale via attrition.

I believe in personal motivation to improve ones education, but i don't like the many excuses they use to push for the BSN, when hospitals have been using non BSN nurses for a long time and this never was an issue before. Now with the surplus of graduates they decide to play this card.

Your area may have a real need for nurses, but many other areas have a high unemployment rate for new grads. So you cant generalize from your limited experience.

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Hello everyone. I am new here. Everything I have read suggests the push for higher degrees is due to better patient outcomes. In my area, the tech school ADN graduates have a 95% job placement rate and that was from a very recent study, so the need for ADNs is still there. However, requiring BSNs is a GOOD thing because the higher the barriers to entry become the pay inevitably gets better. Simple economics. So these hospitals requiring this will discover the day when they have to pay higher wages as a result of raising the barriers to entry. Hence, it's a good thing economically for nurses in the long term.

Also by your statement we should make the minimum entry required to become RN the DNP degree. That way there would be a bigger barrier to entry hence more pay. This point of yours looks down on the many experiences RN that don't have a BSN, but know more sometimes that some MDs.

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Specializes in ICU.

Wow. Sometimes I can't believe the strange things I read here on AN. I have been an RN for over 25 years now. There have been tons and tons of BSN nurses in the hospitals for decades. If a hospital had mostly "diploma" nurses, that must have been many, many YEARS ago. The BSN is not a new thing. The ADN was mostly created to put registered nurses into the workforce quicker, esp. at a time when there was indeed a shortage of RN's. Yes, some hospitals would very much like to get rid of their higher-paid nurses, but this has nothing to do with the BSN; most of the older nurses I associate with have at least their BSN, and some have a master's. Many of us also have another degree in some other field. Everything seems to be cyclical; there will be a shortage again in future, or so we are told; right now hospitals can be choosy with the over-saturation of nurse grads. When I first graduated with the ADN, that was the "cat's meow." Everybody wanted to hire the ADN because we had a lot more clinical education, and could function quickly without costly orientations. I have a BSN and a prior accounting degree, oh yeah, and a business degree obtained way back in the 70's. I might be an old fart, but I still run circles around the new BSN grads, and they come to me for advice every single day.

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