Phasing Out ADN?

FiremedicMike said:

Sounds like you went to a quality BSN program that added substance to your ADN.

Precisely not my point— it was NOT an ADN-to-BSN program. I went directly from high school to a university college of nursing for a bachelors degree. My point is that I want to see every nurse take a program like that to be  a fully prepared professional for today's needs. ((Fireproofies on))
When you see the gnashing of teeth over lower NCLEX pass rates "because it was so hard!!” — remember that today's nurses need to have a stronger scientific and gen ED background more than we ever needed before, and they ought to test for that. If nursing isn't as easy as people think, well, prove you're ready and prepared for it.

I despise the fluff you describe. It cheapens the idea of professional education. 


londonflo said:

When the first studies came out, decades ago, the results were quoted over and over without new studies done. Yes, we in ADN education got the point and added to our curriculums. 

Please cite the new studies (less than 5 years old) .

Here you go, a summary and a link to the paper (you can get Nursing Outlook online). Finding this took me approxiamtely 45 seconds. Google Scholar is a wonderful thing.

Hospital Nurses and Patient Outcomes: A Matter of Degree?

Bachelor's-Prepared Nurses Associated with Better Outcomes 

https://ldi.upenn.edu/our-work/research-updates/hospital-nurses-and-patient-outcomes-a-matter-of-degree/

January 13, 2022 By:

Joshua Porat-Dahlerbruch, PhD, RN and Linda H. Aiken, PhD, RN, FAAN, FRCN

Our recently published study of 510 hospitals and 20,268 practicing nurses is the first to answer this important question. We found that hospitals with a larger proportion of nurses with BSN qualifications have significantly lower risk-adjusted mortality for surgical patients, regardless of the specific pathway nurses take to earn a bachelor's degree in nursing. In other words, it does not matter whether nurses obtain their BSN through a traditional 4-year program at a college or university or an RN to baccalaureate completion program; all paths leading to a largely bachelor's qualified hospital nurse workforce contribute to better patient outcomes.  

Specifically, we found that every 10% increase in the proportion of BSN nurses in a hospital resulted in a 5.5% decrease in surgical patient mortality. This means that hospitals with 80% of the nursing staff holding a BSN by any pathway have mortality rates about 25% lower than hospitals with 30% of their nurses with BSN qualifications.

Our study findings also have implications for access to education and diversity of the BSN workforce. Baccalaureate completion programs are often thought to enhance access to BSN education and promote diversity among BSN nurses. Ethnic and racial minority nurses are less likely to obtain a BSN through a 4-year program but are slightly more likely to obtain a BSN or higher at some point in their career via baccalaureate completion pathways. As such, besides contributing to more BSN nurses in the workforce, maintaining multiple pathways to the BSN may also contribute to BSN workforce diversity and potentially to reducing health disparities.

Our study provides the first empirical evidence indicating that the 80% BSN goal and better patient outcomes can be met by increases in BSN nurses educated through both traditional 4-year and baccalaureate completion pathways. These study results are positive news for hospital employers and the nursing profession aiming to transition to a primarily BSN-prepared workforce. While graduations from BSN programs in 4-year colleges and universities are growing slowly, trends suggest that these programs will not be able to expand enough to meet the target of a largely BSN nurse workforce. Our results suggest that alternative pathways to the BSN can and should play an important role in achieving the NAM target of 80% BSN nurses within the next decade. 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Variations in nursing baccalaureate education and 30-day inpatient surgical mortality, was published in Nursing Outlook on November 8, 2021. Authors include Joshua Porat-Dahlerbruch, Linda H. Aiken, Karen B. Lasater, Douglas M. Sloane, and Matthew D. McHugh.

Published:November 08, 2021DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.outlook.2021.09.009

I got an email with another post from you, copied here:

You had science credit courses that lasted a semester:

Hannahbanana said:

 I had seven semesters of lab science courses over four years (2 semesters of basic chem, one semester of organic; bio, micro, anatomy, physiology, plus pharmacology),

with each 4 credits you had 8 courses spread over 8 semesters: equals 32 credits

Hannahbanana said:

three years of 24 hours per week of bedside clinical including full quarters of psych, peds, public health, OB, medical, and surgical,

8 hours of credit (3 to 1 ratio) for clinical per week (using your numbers ) X 6 semesters = 48 credits. 

Hannahbanana said:

semesters of sociology, anthropology, and economics

each 3 credits.  equals 9 credits.

Just following your numbers calculated by the usual credit per semester course.....

32+48+9+ = 89        11.2 credits a semester.

but the link took me to this one. Not sure what you meant by counting credits in this way, because not all colleges count them the same. I just did full semesters of each as noted, and that was all I meant. The lab courses were three 1-hour lectures per week plus one lab for 3 hours, and the non-lab ones were a standard 1-hour class 3x/week. Clinicals were 07-1430, plus an hour of post-conference Tu-W-Th, and my nursing classroom courses were 4 hours on Monday and 3 hours on Friday. Mondays I had classes from 0800 to 2200, because I took one class for 4 hours from 18-22 since the rest of the day was full up with everything else.

Geez, I couldn't do all that now to save my soul.

Tommy5677 said:

With regards to better patient outcomes with BSN's, if the University of Penn has a BSN program with associated hospitals, that is not objective, independent research. Please try again.

I don't suppose that you read the poster's initial question, which was seeking current studies using data collection from hospitals with all kinds of nurses employed side-by-side, or the data from this study from many different hospitals, not just the UPenn hospitals. 

It's a disingenuous fallacy to assert (or imply) that because a research study is performed by a unit of a university (I'll let you read it and see which one... it's not the college of nursing) that therefore they are biased a priori about their subjects. That's like saying that because the Red Cross and the American Heart Association teach CPR they shouldn't be interested in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest recognition, treatment, and outcomes.  
 

Who, or what entity, specifically, do you have in mind for conducting "independent research" on nursing actions and outcomes? The AFL-CIO? NASA? The Chamber of Commerce? Maybe the ANA should conduct safety research on railroads or mining, then?