Enrollment in BSN, MSN and doctorate nursing programs elevated this past year, with increased nurses responding to the call to succeed the amount, based on new data in the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. Although nursing schools happen to be in a position to expand student capacity despite faculty and resource shortfalls, the most recent data demonstrated 75,857 qualified candidates to professional nursing education programs were averted this past year, including a lot more than 14,354 programs to graduate programs.
“With the [2010] release of the Institute of Medicine’s report on the future of nursing, the nation’s conversations about increasing the training degree of the nursing labor force are speeding up,” AACN President Kathleen Potempa, RN, PhD, FAAN, stated inside a news release. “Last year’s enrollment increases across all kinds of baccalaureate and graduate nursing education programs clearly indicate a powerful interest among student nurses in evolving the amount and developing the abilities required to thrive in contemporary care configurations.”
The IOM has predicted that not less than 80% of the nursing labor force to carry a BSN degree by 2020, as well as for doubling of the amount of nurses with doctorates. AACN stated that applying the IOM recommendations will propel the nursing profession forward and set nurses in better positions being full partners in changing the country’s health care delivery system.
AACN’s latest survey findings update preliminary data introduced last December and see enrollment trends by evaluating data in the same schools confirming both in 2010 and 2011. Final survey data show enrollments in entry-level BSN programs elevated by 5.1% this year, a considerably greater percentage than was initially reported in December (3.9%).