Schools re-evaluate nursing programs

Associated Press

DAYTON

The state’s hospitals are demanding nurses with more schooling, forcing Ohio colleges to re-evaluate and reconfigure their nursing programs.

Examples of how schools are responding include a new three-year bachelor of science in nursing program that began Aug. 22 at Kettering College in suburban Dayton, and the phasing out of the two-year nursing degree offered at southwest Ohio’s Miami University, the Dayton Daily News reported.

The last two years have seen a greater push by Ohio hospitals to hire nurses who have more than two years of study in the field, said Gingy Harshey-Meade, chief executive officer of the Ohio Nurses Association.

The shift is being driven by evidence that nurses with a higher level of education provide an enhanced level of care for patients, according to Paulette Worcester, who chairs the nursing department at Miami University. The school plans to give out its last associate degrees in nursing in May of next year.

“Our hospital partners are finding patients fare better, there are fewer complications, and length of stay is shorter when a bachelor’s-degreed nurse [is] at the bedside,” Worcester said.

Nursing is one of the most popular fields of study in the state, with almost 30,000 students enrolling in programs in 2009, according to the most recent Ohio Board of Nursing data.

Some hospitals are so sold on bachelor’s degrees that they now require newer nurses to obtain one as a condition for keeping their jobs. Nurses hired by facilities in the Kettering Health Network must receive their bachelor’s within five years, said Brenda Kuhn, vice president of patient care services at Kettering Medical Center.

A similar concept could become a part of Ohio law, as a committee is exploring whether there should be a state regulation making it mandatory for nurses to earn a bachelor’s degree within 10 years.