Become a Nurse >> Browse Articles >> Degrees & Certifications >> BSN

6 Reasons to Get a BSN

Featured Author:

Jennifer Fink, RN, BSN

Jennifer L.W. Fink, RN, BSN, is a Registered Nurse who has been writing professionally for over 10 years. As a med-surg and transplant nurse, she worked hard to develop a rapport with her patients, to teach them according to their needs and to provide them with information and options. Today, she uses those same skills in her writing career. She is very interested in professional issues in nursing. Follow Jennifer on Facebook and Twitter.

More articles from this author:

• 5 Reasons to Get a PhD/DNP
• Public Health Nursing
• Med-Surg Nursing

#2: Institute of Medicine: 80% of all nurses should have BSN by 2020

Last year, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released The Future of Nursing, the culmination of its two-year, cooperative study of nursing and healthcare with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The study was commissioned because health leaders recognize that the health challenges faced by nurses today are not the same as those faced in the past. Today’s patients are older, sicker and more diverse than ever before. The healthcare landscape has changed as well. Nurses today work out in the community and actively promote health and well-being for entire populations. The report concludes that “the ways in which nurses were educated during the 20th century are no longer adequate for dealing with the realities of health care in the 21st century.”

Knowledge of basic nursing skills is no longer enough. According to the IOM, core competencies for today’s nurses include:

• Leadership
• Health policy
• System improvement
• Research and evidence-based practice
• Teamwork and collaboration
• Competency in specific content areas such as community and public health and geriatrics
• Technological knowledge

While the IOM recognizes that “a BSN education is not a panacea for all that is expected of nurses in the future”, it recommends that the proportion of nurses with baccalaureate degrees increase to 80 percent by 2020. (They also recommend doubling the number of doctorate-prepared nurses by 2020!)