According to the study about nurse graduates from higher education levels having a higher productivity, and the direct link to impacts on patients care outcomes, the link appears clear (Yakusheva & Weiss, 2017). The study looked at physiological, functional, emotional, cognitive, mobility, symptom control, knowledge, self-care, complications, injury, falls, pressure ulcers, and infections associated within the relationship between nurses trained at an associate level, or baccalaureate level (Yakusheva & Weiss, 2017).
In multiple studies it has been shown over and over again the productivity boost from having an higher education such as baccalaureate nurse level, thus improving the safety and care outcomes of our patients (Yakusheva & Weiss, 2017). Completion of a baccalaureate program increases the nurses intellectual capital, and this in turns raises performance, and consequently productivity and that equals better and safer outcomes and care (Yakusheva & Weiss, 2017).
I truly feel, that I'm a better nurse than I was when I started the BSN program, from the knowledge learned so far, and was surprised because I felt I was a great nurse to begin with, so just goes to prove that increasing your education can help you serve your patients better, and safer.
When looking at roles of ADN and BSN nurses, it has been shown that BSN nurses function more independently in collaboration of care delivery when assigned to direct care (Yakusheva & Weiss, 2017). It has been shown through multiple studies that hospitals that employ large numbers of BSN-prepared nurses have lower patient mortality rates, with just a 10%, increase in BSN nurses shows a 7 %, decrease in patients deaths (RWJF, 2014).
Even though associate degree nurses make tremendous contributions in the field, more highly educated nurses are needed to navigate an increasingly complex health care system, and ensure that patients who are sicker, living longer, having multiple chronic health conditions, have access to highly skilled, patient-centered care across the entire care continuum (RWJF, 2014). Multiple studies have found positive correlations to lower cost, shorten hospital stays, and most important decrease deaths with furthering the education level of the nurse to a baccalaureate level (RWJF, 2014).
After reading and most importantly completed the BSN program, it is clear that patient safety outcomes would be better with a BSN degree, because of the training to critically think, research, and understand more with health disparities, to address a patient, and their situation different than an ADN trained nurse.