Every two years, the California Board of Registered Nurses conducts a statewide assessment survey to track, measure and describe the population of RNs licensed in California and to examine changes in this population over time. Completed in fall 2014, the most recent Biennual California Statewide Survey of Registered Nurses shows an increase in the number of RNs with Bachelors of Science in Nursing (BSN) or higher, from 53.2 percent in 2012 to 61.5 percent today.
The increase marks a successful and concerted effort in California and nationally to motivate the nursing workforce to obtain higher levels of education. More educated nurses improve patient outcomes, according to a growing body of evidence. Efforts to achieve this include the Betty Irene Moore Nursing Initiative, launched in the early 2000s, which supported the expansion of San Francisco Bay Area nursing programs offering BSNs, including training academic and clinical faculty for those schools.
The 2010 Institute of Medicine’s Future of Nursing report recommended that 80 percent of RNs obtain at least a BSN. While not yet fully realized, the nurse workforce has made significant strides over the past decade. Since the launch of Nursing Initiative-supported workforce programs, the increase in RNs with BSNs and higher has increased by more than 100 percent. Other key findings from the 2014 data include:
- Diversity of nursing workforce is slowly increasing.
- Employment settings have been relatively stable.
- Hospital-employed RNs continue to dominate where nurses work, compared to employment rates in ambulatory care work settings.
The 2014 survey was mailed to 10,000 RNs with active California licenses and addresses in the United States. The survey response rate was 55.7 percent, yielding information for about 5,573 nurses. The University of California, San Francisco is commissioned to develop and administer the survey.
Read the complete survey report here.
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