The number of front-line nurses with bachelor's degrees in U.S. hospitals increased by 13 percent from 2004 to 2013, according to a study published in the Journal of Nursing Scholarship.
Researchers examined the educational trends for front-line registered nurses by investigating data from 2004-2013 from the Registered Nurse Education Indicators, part of the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators. The database includes nursing and patient outcomes from more than 2,000 U.S. hospitals.
Researchers studied 2,126 nursing units from 377 acute care hospitals. They found the proportion of nurses holding at least a BSN spiked from 44 percent in 2004 to 57 percent in 2013.
The proportion of nurses with BSNs in a nursing unit increased by 1.3 percent annually before 2010, and by 1.9 percent each year after that. Around 3 percent of units had at least 80 percent of nurses with a bachelor's degree in 2009; the number jumped to 7 percent in 2013.
In its 2020 milestone report, the Institute of Medicine recommended that 80 percent of nurses should have at least a BSN by 2020 to effective meet future U.S. healthcare needs as well as improve quality of care. The current study shows it is unlikely the goal will be achieved. The evidence points to 64 percent of nurses having a bachelor's degree by 2020.