Nurse practitioner schools—whether online or onsite—are often able to accommodate varying points of academic entry, depending on the experience of an applicant. The flexibility of these programs is ideal for prospective NPs who did not earn Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing (BSN) degrees as undergraduates but still want to pursue the career. It is important to note that there exists different terminology around these NP programs:
Following are a few more examples of how different programs name themselves to indicate an accelerated nursing track:
| School | Program | What it Means |
|---|---|---|
| Hunter–Bellevue School of Nursing, CUNY | ACCELERATED SECOND-DEGREE NURSING PROGRAM (A2D) | RN + Non-Nursing Bachelor’s to MSN |
| University of California, San Francisco | MASTERS ENTRY PROGRAM IN NURSING (MEPN) | RN + Non-Nursing Bachelor’s to MSN |
| Johns Hopkins University | ENTRY INTO NURSING | RN + Non-Nursing Bachelor’s to MSN |
| Vanderbilt University | PRESPECIALTY ENTRY | RN + Non-Nursing Bachelor’s to MSN |
At NursePractitionerSchools.com, the term “accelerated” refers to programs which require applicants to have a non-nursing bachelor’s degree and not necessarily an RN license, although a majority of online “accelerated” programs require applicants to have an RN license. Also, on this site, “direct entry” programs generally refer to hybrid (or on-campus) programs for applicants with non-nursing bachelor’s degrees but don’t require applicants to have an RN license.
Overall, the terminology is mutable and is used slightly differently among schools.
A lack of access to primary care in the United States is one of the key reasons why the Commonwealth Fund ranks the U.S. as having the worst healthcare system in the affluent world. Looking to the future, the impending primary care provider shortage indicates that this problem is only to going to intensify, particularly in the South and Midwest.
Given the overwhelming evidence that NPs provide cost-effective, safe healthcare for their patients, it’s time for Oklahoma to disabuse itself of unnecessary practice restrictions so that NPs can help alleviate the looming primary care provider shortage.
As a shortage of primary care providers looms on our collective horizon, lack of access to primary care has the potential to get much worse. And, unfortunately, the South is going to be the most heavily impacted.
