By Debra Wood, RN, contributor
With four-year nursing schools filled to capacity and a growing demand for more highly educated nurses, several community colleges have begun offering Bachelor of Science in Nursing degrees.
Fay Raines, PhD, RN, president of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, said the press for more nurses with BSN degrees is in response to the health-care community wanting more highly educated nurses.
“We look at this as an enhancement of preparing the nursing workforce at a higher level of education,” said Fay Raines, PhD, RN, president of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. “We think having more nurses prepared at a higher level is a good thing. There is evidence that higher education is linked to better patient outcomes.”
A 2003 study led by Linda H. Aiken, PhD, FAAN, FRCN, RN, at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, showed that surgical patients experienced lower mortality and failure-to-rescue rates in hospitals with higher proportions of nurses educated at the baccalaureate level or higher. In a 2008 study, Aiken and colleagues confirmed these findings in another study that showed a 10 percent increase in the proportion of BSN-prepared nurses was linked to a 4 percent decrease in the risk of surgical patient death at the hospital.
A University of Toronto study also concluded that more nurses with baccalaureate degrees improved outcomes. Ann Tourangeau, PhD RN, , and colleagues found the death rate decreased by nine patients per 1,000 discharges when the number of BSN-prepared nurses increased by 10 percent.
Armed with the evidence, many hospitals have aimed to increase the proportion of baccalaureate-prepared nurses on staff. In addition, as facilities participate in the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Magnet Recognition Program, they often want to increase their ranks of more highly educated nurses.
“There was a great market need, as hospitals were looking to upgrade the level of staffing,” said Anita Kaplan, EdD, president of the Medical Center Campus at Miami Dade College in Florida, about the reason it began a BSN program in January 2008. “It seemed to have great impact in hospitals seeking Magnet status. And also, there was a limited number of spaces available for students in [existing] BSN programs in the area.”
In addition, some states have initiated plans to move toward requiring a baccalaureate degree as a minimum standard for entry to nursing practice, said Kathy Kaufman, senior research scientist for public policy at the National League of Nursing.
“I think it has encouraged some community colleges that offer associate degrees to also begin to offer baccalaureate degrees,” Kaufman said. “There is also a strong movement within nursing education to encourage academic progression, from an associate degree to a baccalaureate and then on to graduate education. It’s a way of facilitating that.”
Nursing needs more nurses with graduate degrees to teach future generations, and Kaufman considers programs that help nurses stay in school beneficial to the profession.
Several graduates of St. Petersburg College in Florida have continued their education and are now teaching part time while practicing in a clinical setting, and some have returned to the college as full-time faculty members.
Jean Wortock, PhD, MSN, ARNP, dean of the College of Nursing at Saint Petersburg College, reported that RN-to-BSN programs, such as the one her school offers, open up career opportunities for nurses.
“It opens more career avenues for individuals, and that’s a real plus,” said Jean Wortock, PhD, MSN, ARNP, dean of the College of Nursing at St. Petersburg.
Beth Hagan, executive director of the Community College Baccalaureate Association in Fort Myers, Florida, reported that the trend of community colleges offering BSN degrees mirrors a previous movement by the colleges to offer teaching degrees.
“The university systems are overwhelmed with the demand for teachers and nurses, and not come close to the requirement of the health-care system,” Hagan said. “For that reason, several states have started to have community colleges confer BSNs.”
The majority of community colleges offering BSN degrees are located in Florida. But Olympic College in Washington State and Vincennes University in Indiana, also offer nursing baccalaureate degrees. Both of them began BSN programs in 2007 in response to hospital requests for more highly educated nurses.
The community colleges have developed RN-to-BSN programs, rather than generic BSN programs, which might compete directly with nearby universities.
At St. Petersburg College, just over 60 percent of students in its RN-to-BSN students had graduated from the college’s associate-degree in nursing program.
“It has increased our associate-degree enrollment somewhat,” Wortock said.
St. Petersburg College offers online as well as face-to-face courses and has nurses from all over the country enrolled in its program, Wortock said. The college also allows its baccalaureate students an opportunity to specialize in critical care, emergency care, and sepsis awareness and education.
Florida State College at Jacksonville also offers a critical-care track, which includes three terms of hands-on clinical experience in the critical-care setting, said June Chandler, PhD, RN, associate dean of the college’s BSN program.
The amount of clinical experience the community colleges provide varies. Beth Norton, MSN, RN, division director of the BSN program at Northwest Florida State College in Niceville, reported that students spend some time in the clinical setting but not as much as the students in its associate degree program.
St. Petersburg College BSN students take practicums in community health and leadership, but they are not placed in clinical rotations.
Miami Dade College’s BSN program is designed to prepare nurses for leadership roles. They take liberal arts and management coursework. Most of the classes are online to make it easier for working nurses to participate.
“We are really making a difference in the community we serve,” Kaplan said. “The community spoke up and said they need more highly credentialed nurses as an option for employment, and we responded.”
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