Associates Versus Bachelors Prepared Nurses
Heidi Oppenheimer
Grand Canyon University

For the past decade or so the debate between the efficacy of bachelors prepared nurses, diploma nurses, and associates prepared nurses has been a hot top topic. In general, there doesn’t appear to be a difference in skill set, but with at least two years of continued training and education for a bachelor’s degree, there must be some difference. As with all nursing studies, patient care and safety must be examined. With many experts publishing studies diving into the health care field to determine the difference with regards to patient safety, the scales appear to be tipping in favor of bachelors prepared nurses. Although the differences in technical skills between an Associated Degree in Nursing (ADN), Diploma Nurse, and a Bachelors of Science in Nursing (BSN) nurse tend to be minimal, as most BSN programs require additional classes in communication, critical thinking and leadership there is a distinct difference in leadership, communication abilities, and the tendency to make errors. An ADN requires two years of study and a BSN will require four years. Although the diploma nurse is slowly losing favor, there are still a handful of programs that allow the student nurse to spend one to two years straight out of high school with little to no pre-requisites and focus their studies almost exclusively on the hands-on technical skills required for nurses. While all programs have their merits, as magnet hospitals have noted through years of study, increasing the amount of bachelors prepared nurses has a direct inverse correlation in decreasing patient deaths. It stands to reason then, that more BSN nurses means better outcomes for the population. “What is becoming clearer with recent research, however, is that BSN-prepared graduates give care that is evidence-based and