What's REALLY with the hospitals using Magnet as a cover for wanting BSN only nurses?

[foreverLaur]

I'm in an associate degree RN program. I have a previous BA in Psychology and just finished up my last two classes online to also get my BS in Business Administration. I have worked for over a year as a PCA at a local hospital and also work as a supplemental instruction leader to help incoming nursing students do better in their first and second quarters. Yet all the nursing recruiters at the hospitals I'm looking at say that without a BSN, none of that will matter and my odds of getting hired are slim to none since I am competing with 4 well respected BSN programs.When asked why, all the hospitals said it is a requirement for Magnet status. From what I can tell, the requirements in terms of degrees for Magnet status are:

1. The CNO must have at a minimum, a master's degree at the time of application. If the master's degree is not in nursing then either a baccalaureate degree or doctoral degree must be in nursing.

2. Effective 1/1/2011 - 75% Nurse Managers must have a degree in nursing (baccalaureate or graduate degree)

3. Effective 1/1/2013 - 100% Nurse Managers must have a degree in nursing (baccalaureate or graduate degree)

4. Effective 1/1/2013 - 100% of nurse leaders must have a degree in nursing (baccalaureate or graduate degree)

By the AANC's definition, most nurses don't fall under any of these cateogories. A nurse leader is a nurse with line authority over multiple units that have RNs working clinically and those nurse leaders who are positioned on the organizational chart between the nurse manager and the CNO. A nurse manager is Registered Nurse with 24 hour/7day accountability for the overall supervision of all Registered Nurses and other healthcare providers in an inpatient or outpatient area. The Nurse Manager is typically responsible for recruitment and retention, performance review, and professional development; involved in the budget formulation and quality outcomes; and helps to plan for, organize and lead the delivery of nursing care for a designated patient care area.

There are NO requirements or recommendations stated for the vast majority of nurses - the ones doing the bedside care on a daily basis. So why are all the local hospitals hiding behind Magnet as their reason for only wanting to hire BSN nurses when that's not true at all?? I do plan to get my BSN and my MSN, but I need experience first and nobody will apparently hire me when I graduate! I also cannot afford a RN-BSN program without a job that will help me pay for it (all these hospitals offer tuition reimbursement for RN-BSN programs) because I am fresh out of undergraduate loans.

So what's the deal and what do us associate degree nurses do!?

[DoGoodThenGo]

^ True. Most state BON regard the RN as the "professional" nurse, so even if that "professional" logic is embraced, so....???

Maybe I'm not up in arms about it because, again, I'm about making changes, contributing, making up solutions, research, delving into good, ole EBP, if I need to, not banging about what someone thinks about my nursing degree, especially if I am practicing safely.

Nursing is still a evolving profession, you are never going to learn "everything," it's beneficial to keep your practice up, because the scope is broadening and changing for nurses...if one wants to be prepared and knowledgeable when these changes come, them do it, it's to the nurses' benefit.

Nursing like medicine, law and the other professions are called a *practice* because they are just that. All are constantly changing and those envolved must keep up, but in now way are they absolute either at graduation or anytime during their career. Best one can do is look at something and by education along with experience make a decision.

[nurseywifeymommy1]

Why would a nurse with a BSN want to be a floor nurse?? Too many chiefs not enough Indians

[Kamilia2010]

I have an associate degree in nursing and planning to start my RN-to-BSN program next year. I want to advance my degree, but this is by choice. I understand that many hospitals prefer new grads to have BSN over ADN. However, I don’t believe in forcing experienced nurses with 10, 20 years of experience back to school just to keep their jobs. We are forgetting the most important thing here, patient safety and patient care. That is the heart of nursing. Many of the new BSN nurses are trained by experienced ADNs. No one can claim that BSNs perform job functions better than ADN or vise versa.

I am also a little confused about magnet status for hospitals. Magnet Status must hire BSNs? I was hired on ADN for UWMC, a magnet status hospital. There are 7 new hires on my unit, 3 w/ ADN and 4 w/ BSN. So obviously, Magnet hospital are hiring ADNs.

[subee, MSN, CRNA]

Why would a nurse with a BSN want to be a floor nurse?? Too many chiefs not enough Indians

Because that's what a lot of went to school for - to work with the patients. It's all about staffing and management. If those two factors were adequate, more BSN's would be working on the floors. And when they are adequate, that's where BSN's stay on the floor.

[Tait, MSN, RN]

I have talked to over a dozen nurses who originally completed an ADN program and later when back and did a RN-BSN. They have ALL said it was a complete waste of time and money. The new requirement being BSN only certainly isn't because we'll be better nurses because of it!

Well you can add one ADN-MSN to the other camp. I found a wealth of benefit to completing my degree in terms of my bedside application and respect for nursing in general.

I would suggest reading Patricia Benner's book from the Carnegie Foundation called Educating Nurses. In she discusses the advantages and disadvantages of ADN, BSN, and Diploma programs. The current state of BSN programs does not make it just an easy "everyone has a BSN and everything is better". There is a lot of change that needs to be made in all aspects of nursing education, mostly in combining what works in all three licensing routes into one, cohesive and interdisciplinary program.

Also Magnet does have an initiative for BSN requirement:

Effective June 1, 2013, according to the Magnet information website, (http://nursecredentialing.org/FunctionalCategory/FAQ/DEO-FAQ.aspx) a new source of evidence needed to apply for Magnet status requests applicants: "to provide an action plan and set a target, which demonstrates evidence of progress toward having 80 percent of direct-care nurses obtain a baccalaureate degree in nursing or higher by 2020."

80 by '20 on ADVANCE for Nurses

Tait

[LadyFree28, BSN, LPN, RN]

Well you can add one ADN-MSN to the other camp. I found a wealth of benefit to completing my degree in terms of my bedside application and respect for nursing in general.

I would suggest reading Patricia Benner's book from the Carnegie Foundation called Educating Nurses. In she discusses the advantages and disadvantages of ADN, BSN, and Diploma programs. The current state of BSN programs does not make it just an easy "everyone has a BSN and everything is better". There is a lot of change that needs to be made in all aspects of nursing education, mostly in combining what works in all three licensing routes into one, cohesive and interdisciplinary program.

Also Magnet does have an initiative for BSN requirement:

Effective June 1, 2013, according to the Magnet information website, (http://nursecredentialing.org/FunctionalCategory/FAQ/DEO-FAQ.aspx) a new source of evidence needed to apply for Magnet status requests applicants: "to provide an action plan and set a target, which demonstrates evidence of progress toward having 80 percent of direct-care nurses obtain a baccalaureate degree in nursing or higher by 2020."

80 by '20 on ADVANCE for Nurses

Tait

^ Pat Benner fan. Her "Novice to Expert" Theory is one of my driving forces in my practice, when I was introduced to nursing theory when I went to PN school, and had Nursing Theory and Research and had to create a research proposal about skill mix.

Even if I sound nerdy or geeky, I plan to look into this book. :)

[Jenni811, RN]

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the definition of a professional mean an expert on a certain area? For example a doctor is a professional because they specialize. A nurse that specializes in something is a professional (I.e. family practice, midwife etc.) So therefore a bsn and adn are not "professional"? Don't attack me...I'm a BSN so its ok if i say it. I'm just stating what I THOUGHT was the definition of a professional.

[Gentleman_nurse, MSN]

Just because I don't want to get my BSN or that others have said it is a wate of time doesn't mean that I won't get it. I will definitely get my BSN as quickly as possible. I plan to become a nurse practitioner, so I will be continuing my education and a BSN is the next required step unless I attend a program that doesn't require a BSN since I have an ADN and a non-nursing bachelors degree.

Also, not an easy solution. What if the only hospitals in your location are magnet hospitals? What if you don't have the luxury to pick up and move because of family situations? It's not as easy as just knocking on the door of that conveniently located non-Magnet hospital down the road. Every single hospital in my area is either Magnet or working very hard to become Magnet and only interested in BSN prepared nurses.

Why do hospitals need a fancy title or designation to promote leadership and education? They can't do it all on their own? More education doesn't make a nurse a better nurse. It can, but it doesn't always. A BSN also isn't required to be a good leader. Experience and other education can make a nurse a great leader. Sure a BSN can certainly help, but you can educate yourself until you are blue in the face and have ever degree under the sun and still be a poor nurse and a poor leader. You can't always teach someone how to take that education and apply it in the real world.

Laziness! BSN is an easy way to thin the herd.

[avengingspirit1]

This is the bottom-line truth on Magnet Status:

Magnet status has become a private joke in the nursing profession. When the evaluators come, hospitals are well aware in advance and make sure that only nurses who fit a certain profile are scheduled during that time. More of these nurses are staffed and patient loads are reduced. The hospital pays the accrediting division of the ANA (ANCC) thousands of dollars and when the check clears, Magnet Recognition is granted. The hospital then qualifies for large government stipends for acquiring and maintaining Magnet Status. After the evaluations are complete, the hospital goes back to it's previous staffing levels and patient loads.

Many nurses have been quoted as saying this is nothing more than a money making scheme for the ANA. While some hospitals may truly aspire to provide superior patient care, there are many that should have their fake seal of approval taken away from them. I tell patients that hospitals need to be judged on their own individual merits and not on the magnet recognition flags they fly outside their doors.

As as far as the BSN goes, it's just another part of this phony degree inflation going on today which is merely scheme to suck more money from the pockets of students and professionals and line the pockets of people and organizations who are in any remote way affiliated with four year institutions. I've spoken to physical therapists here in Phila., PA who told me that changing the requirements from an entry-level master's degree to a D.PT program only served to put PTs into more debt upon graduation and did nothing to enhance the practice of physical therapy. Even professional degree programs have been so watered-down that they have much less value than they did some 40 years ago. And why? Because schools like to promote a large percentage of graduates as a marketing tool and a way to qualify for more funding.

Any nurse with an ounce of sense will tell you that the BSN is very long on the BS part and short on the N part. And to keep the dollars flowing, once they can convince nurses to run back for BSNs, they'll then say nurses need a master's to elevate the profession. The thing nurse employers love to hear is that you're thousands of dollars in debt. They know these nurses are less likely to speak up about unsafe patient loads and the other unethical things that go on in hospitals.

You're right. BSN is an easy way to thin the herd. It gives employers an indication of who are the most gullible and easy to manipulate. As for me; I'd rather spend the money investing in a business rather than helping to line the pockets of nurse academic elitists so they can keep their cushy, never-having-to-produce-results positions. Also, as a result of declining reimbursements to providers due to the Affordable Care Act, many hospitals will be downsizing and consolidating. A nurse can spend thousands of dollars getting that BSN and find they may no longer have a job. If a hospital claims they are laying nurses off due to economic reasons, they no longer have to honor tuition reimbursement contracts.

Anyone who will tell you that the BSN and Magnet Status push is not money-driven is either lying, stupid or both.

[subee, MSN, CRNA]

Has anyone done a study about turnover in Magnet hospitals? Any other measurements studied? What's stupid is bad-mouthing the Magnet concept without data.

[avengingspirit1]

It is a fact that hospitals receive federal money for attaining "Magnet Recognition." It is a fact that hospitals put on a dog and pony show when the evaluators are there. It is a fact that hospitals must fork over thousands of dollars to the ANCC for that seal of approval. "Nothing more than a money making scheme for the ANA, hospitals pay the ANA thousands of dollars for a fake seal of approval." (Jan.16, 2009, Nursingjobs.org.). The testimonials that Magnet Status is a scheme meant to manipulate the uninformed general public into feeling better about one hospital versus another came from every nurse I had spoken to who had worked or is working at a "magnet hospital".

These are the things they don't want the general public to know. But I'm going to make sure they know.

[subee, MSN, CRNA]

Your reply is not evidence. I FEEL that lower turn-over rates translate into a positive. I FEEL that Magnet hospitals might have lower turnover rates. In fact, a researcher could make that the null hypothesis. The only thing I KNOW is that I would prefer to work in a hospital with lower staff turnover. We need a lot more research on the subject- not opinion.