Why a BSN Degree Is Important in Nursing
A BSN in nursing is important for your education as well as your career success. As a Loyola Accelerated BSN program track student, your degree can help you find employment with better health-care employers and make pursuing a nursing specialization more achievable.
If you’re considering a career in nursing, earning a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) is one of the best professional decisions you can make. A nursing degree is a mark of educational achievement and for some nursing positions, it’s a requirement. If you want access to nursing’s full range of career opportunities, a BSN is the best path forward. With the right preparation, you can earn your nursing degree in 16 months.
If you already have a degree in a non-nursing field, Loyola University Chicago’s Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing (ABSN) Program Track is designed for you. You’ll gain a complete generalist nursing education in 16 months, accelerating your transition into a nursing career. Nursing courses are paired with skills and simulation labs as well as clinical rotations at the Chicago area’s best health-care facilities, all under the expert instruction and guidance of leading faculty and practitioners. Loyola’s ABSN Program Track could be the perfect route to your new nursing career. But what exactly are the advantages of a BSN over a different nursing degree? Let’s explore why a BSN is so important.
Why Employers Value BSN Degrees
Nurses are in tremendous demand today. Population growth, chronic conditions, an aging population, and increasing rates of retirement among an aging workforce have all contributed to a nursing shortage. Yet if an Associate Degree in Nursing (ADN) usually takes less time to complete, why do employers prefer nurses with a BSN? Employers value the resilience and top-flight competence that BSN-educated nurses bring to patient care.
Discover the value of a Loyola BSN and why the Accelerated Nursing Program Track is worth it.
The Pursuit of Magnet Status
Hospitals or other work environments that have achieved Magnet status are often regarded as among the most enticing workplaces for nurses. According to the American Nurses Credentialing Center, “The Magnet Recognition Program designates organizations worldwide where nursing leaders successfully align their nursing strategic goals to improve the organization’s patient outcomes. The Magnet Recognition Program provides a roadmap to nursing excellence, which benefits the whole of an organization.”
Magnet-designated hospitals not only draw more patients, they attract nursing candidates of the highest caliber. Nursing excellence is key to their reputation for providing the best possible health care. Leadership roles for nurses at magnet hospitals demand at least a bachelor’s degree, among other requirements, and a BSN signals your competence for the demands of a high-quality nursing setting.
Education Correlates with Better Patient Outcomes
The Magnet Recognition Program is motivated by the recognition that a better-educated nursing workforce leads to better patient outcomes. That recognition also explains why a BSN degree helps Loyola graduates find employment with rich opportunities for advancement.
As more employers realize the BSN degree’s value for patient outcomes, nurses holding only an ADN find fewer opportunities for advancement. Earning a BSN is the right move for anyone seeking to combine future opportunities with compassionate caregiving.
How Nurses Can Access Better Career Outcomes with a BSN Degree
In nursing today, career opportunities depend on educational attainment and the profession is continually moving toward specialization. A BSN degree is a way to future-proof your nursing career.
Nurses with a BSN Are More Prepared to Enter the Field
Leading professors and clinicians will guide you throughout Loyola’s ABSN Program Track. Through our nursing coursework, skills and simulation labs, and clinical rotations, you will learn how to apply critical thinking skills in a health-care environment, making sound clinical judgments.
Loyola BSN students who take the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX-RN®) after graduating earn their licensure and are ready to enter a fast-paced health-care environment, holding their own as highly competent, generalist practitioners. The quality of nursing education students receive at Loyola equips them for long and successful careers.
A BSN Degree Is a Common Requirement for Certifications
A BSN will not only ensure your proficiency upon entering the profession as a generalist nurse, it will also prepare you to advance your nursing career by earning specialty certifications or degrees. A BSN signals that you have mastered the advanced material required for specialization and are ready to start building your knowledge in a more focused area. The degree is a prerequisite for pursuing specialty certificates such as the following:
- Emergency Nurse – Certified Emergency Nurse (CEN)
- Wound Care Nurse – Certified Wound Care Nurse (CWCN)
- Flight Nurse – Certified Flight Registered Nurse (CFRN)
- Hospice Nurse – Certified Hospice and Palliative Nurse (CHPN)
- Labor and Delivery Nurse – Inpatient Obstetric Nursing (RNC-OB)
- Long-Term Care Nurse – Gerontological Nursing Certification (GS-C)
- Nurse Informaticist – Informatics Nursing Certification (RN-BC)
- Psychiatric Nurse – Psychiatric-Mental Health Nursing Certification (PMH-BC)
Do you want to pursue an advanced nursing specialization? Find out why a BSN degree will provide the perfect foundation.
The Value of a Loyola BSN Degree
Loyola University Chicago provides a transformative BSN education that integrates Jesuit values into the curriculum. At Loyola, we share a passion for quality, respect for the humanities and sciences, preoccupation with questions of ethics and values, attention to religious experience, and the centering of self. Combining these values with hard work and intellectual rigor, we prepare our students to become competent, compassionate nurses who serve their communities with a commitment to social justice. Loyola’s nursing curriculum also emphasizes the importance of interprofessional collaboration. By graduation, our students have learned how to collaborate within an interdisciplinary health-care team to achieve the best possible patient outcomes.
The Loyola BSN prepares baccalaureate nurses to:
- Integrate quality, prevention, safety, and leadership into nursing practice.
- Provide culturally competent care to individuals and families across the lifespan.
- Incorporate ethics and legal knowledge into nursing practice.
- Deliver safe, evidence-based care to patients through interprofessional collaboration.
- Combine scientific evidence with patient preferences.
- Apply information technology to advance nursing practice.
- Understand the influence government policies have on the health-care system.
By choosing Loyola for your BSN degree, you will graduate prepared to sit for the NCLEX-RN® that’s required to begin your career as a professional nurse.
Earn Your BSN Degree with Loyola
Given the professional opportunities and the educational and personal rewards conferred by a BSN, earning your degree at Loyola could be the perfect route to your future nursing career. Through Loyola’s ABSN Program Track, you could earn your degree in 16 months, accelerating your progress to earning licensure and beginning to practice as a nurse. If you are ready to embark on this new and exciting journey, our enrollment advisors can help you apply. To begin the conversation, contact an enrollment advisor today.