Associate Degree in Nursing: Addressing the Shortage Crisis
This paper presents a policy recommendation to the State of Connecticut Licensure Board arguing for the formal recognition of an RN Associate Degree in Nursing as a minimum educational standard for Registered Nurse licensure. The author outlines the severity of the current nursing shortage, driven by an aging workforce, inadequate recruitment, and rising patient demand. Three potential solutions are examined, with the preferred approach applying Six Sigma continuous-improvement principles to restructure existing nursing curricula. The paper also highlights how technology, flexible program design, and reduced time-to-licensure can attract new candidates — including older adults and parents — while maintaining professional quality standards.
- Introduction: The Nursing Profession in Crisis: Nursing shortage context and Connecticut policy recommendation
- Problems Faced by the Nursing Profession: Recruitment failures and patient care correlation
- Consequences If No Action Is Taken: Aging population demand vs. shrinking nurse supply
- Characteristics of a Workable Solution: Technology, flexibility, and curriculum reform criteria
- Possible Solutions and the Recommended Approach: Three options analyzed; Six Sigma reform recommended
✍️ How to write this paper — guide, tools & examples ▾
What makes this paper effective
- The paper anchors its argument in a real-world policy context — a direct recommendation to the Connecticut Licensure Board — which gives the proposal practical urgency and a defined audience.
- It supports claims about workforce decline with quoted evidence from researchers (Gordon; McNeese-Smith), lending academic credibility to what is primarily a policy argument.
- The "if not accepted" section effectively uses a consequence-framing strategy, showing what happens without change, which strengthens the case for the proposed solution.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper employs a problem-solution structure with a multi-option analysis — presenting three distinct approaches to creating an Associate Degree program and then reasoning through why the Six Sigma-based reform of the existing system is superior. This comparative elimination method is a useful technique in policy and applied research writing.
Structure breakdown
The essay opens with a crisis framing and a clear policy recommendation, then moves through: identification of the nursing profession's systemic problems, an exploration of the consequences of inaction, a description of what an effective solution requires, and finally a comparative analysis of three possible solutions. This logical sequence — problem, stakes, criteria, options — mirrors standard policy memo structure and is appropriate for undergraduate-level applied writing.
Introduction: The Nursing Profession in Crisis
This essay focuses on the current educational levels available in the professional nursing arena and proposes a minimum educational standard that should be required for the Registered Nurse boards at the associate degree level. This work should be considered a formal recommendation to the State of Connecticut Licensure Board. We are at a time of crisis in the nursing profession, and new educational standards may be the only solution for the future.
Throughout our modern circumstances, we have developed a crisis-driven healthcare system marked by hospital downsizings, restructuring of whole systems, and in some cases complete system failures. These are but a few of the many issues healthcare professionals now face. These phenomena, coupled with a host of other challenges, have led to a great deal of upheaval — especially in the nursing community. Nursing shortages, union concerns, deliberate short-staffing as a cost-reduction measure, and the associated pressures of those staffing shortfalls continue to drive the nursing community to search for solutions to current and future workforce gaps.
All of these concerns will eventually reduce the overall quality of care nurses are able to provide for their patients. The nursing profession is also an aging system in which older, more experienced nurses are leaving in large numbers while the profession struggles to replace them. As one observer has noted, "Largely because of current conditions, veteran nurses are leaving the field and potential new entrants are being discouraged from joining the profession. Just as the population is aging and in need of more nursing care, the nation now faces a new nursing shortage." (Gordon) It will therefore be an important function of the current licensure board to adopt new standards that both maintain high levels of professionalism in the nursing field and promote the profession to a younger generation that has not entered the field in the same numbers as previous generations.
This recommendation strongly urges the State of Connecticut Licensure Board to recognize a new RN Associate Degree in Nursing in order to recruit more potential nurses into the field and to provide a clear advancement pathway for qualified individuals who have already attained the LPN credential. This educational approach would greatly increase the number of opportunities available and thereby dramatically raise both the quality of and access to the nursing profession.
Furthermore, an RN Associate Degree in Nursing could increase the collaborative efforts of nursing faculties in teaching, practice, and research, enhance the profession's ability to educate nurses for practice, prepare future nurse educators, and advance nursing science — all at a time when the number of professional nurses, qualified nurse faculty, and nurse researchers is dwindling.
Many other professions with similar standards and levels of professionalism have already reduced the time required to achieve licensure. The nursing profession should follow suit so as not to allow a lengthy educational process to drive away additional candidates. As a profession, we should look to our leaders to develop a condensed yet detail-oriented RN Associates program.
This program should model the positive attributes of existing nursing leaders, provide a well-defined foundation of professional expectations, and offer insights into the healthy communication processes required by the vocation. The key, however, would be to take full advantage of current trends in technology so that the program provides flexibility — beginning with reduced complexity in early coursework and gradually increasing in rigor as experience is gained.
Create your account
Always verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.