Will Nursing Education Meet the Demands of the Future

Nursing education has a problem, according to a recent white paper written by the California Institute for Nursing & Health Care. The authors say that the current system of educating nurses is not meeting the needs of the state’s population, and I imagine a few other states are having similar problems.

Here’s the situation as the white paper authors see it and why we need to change how we teach prospective nurses:

• The way we care for patients is constantly changing. There is increasing emphasis on patient safety, evidence-based medicine and new technology.
• The use of clinical simulation needs to increase. Proponents say it enhances critical thinking, problem-solving, clinical judgment and rapid-response skills. It also provides opportunities to learn in a safe environment, but it is expensive.
• There is renewed interest in collaboration between associate degree and baccalaureate degree programs. Seventy percent of California’s nursing grads are from associate degree programs. In 2007, only 26 percent of these nurses reported continuing their education to obtain a BSN. (Nationally, that number is 20 percent.)
• There is and will continue to be a nursing shortage unless something changes. California is looking at a deficit of 16,000 full-time nurses by 2020. California is 50th in the country in the number of nurses per population – 580 per 100,000. Nationally, that average number is 825 per 100,000.

I also was pretty shocked to learn that a nurse with 20 years of clinical experience must settle for half her salary if she becomes a teacher, so we should not be surprised that nurses aren’t signing up for classroom duty.

Now, back to that third point—the one regarding articulation from an associate degree program to a bachelor’s degree program. That issue long has been a personal pet peeve. Why is the process going from one program to the other so cumbersome and frustrating? It would seem that at the least community colleges and four-year institutions in the same state could figure out a way to work together to produce a program that takes a two-year nurse seamlessly into a BSN program.

Perhaps the motive for not providing such an opportunity has something to do with protecting turf and job security in both the two-year and four-year arena. But if California and all the other states want to boost the numbers of nurses—all kinds—their institutions of higher learning need to get it together and work together.

To read the entire white paper, visit http://www.cinhc.org/programs/documents/NERCWP_FINAL.pdf.

Are you the product of a two-year program? If so, do you want to eventually earn your BSN?

Have you encountered academic roadblocks? If so, what are they?

What improvements do you think should be made in either the two- or four-year programs?

Tell us what you think.