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Nurses in Delaware with master’s degrees earned an average salary that was at least $75,000 as of 2014 according to the state’s Department of Labor. The salaries of MSN-educated nurses varied with their specialty.
Nurse anesthetists earned the highest average salary of those reported:
Obtaining an MSN Significantly Increases Salaries in Delaware
Nearly 86% of nurse practitioners surveyed by the Advance Healthcare Network possessed an MSN in 2014. In contrast, RNs generally lack this credential. Thus a comparison of the median salary among nurse practitioners with that among RNs demonstrates the significant increase in salary conferred by an MSN throughout Delaware (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014):
Delaware Has a High Percentage of MSN-Educated Nurses
Nearly 21% of the respondents to an email survey sent by the Delaware Board of Nursing had an MSN according to the Delaware Nurses Association report Nursing Workforce in the State of Delaware: A Current Look 2014.
This percentage is twice as high as the national average of nurses who have an MSN. More than 12% of the respondents with an MSN were APRNs, while 5.53% were nurse educators.
The number of ARPNs in Delaware increased substantially in recent years. The American Association of Colleges of Nursing reported that 1,505 APRNs were licensed in Delaware in 2014. This is a substantial increase from the number of advanced practice registered nurses reported in 2013. The 2015 Environment Scan from the Journal of Nursing Regulation indicated that 1,315 ARPNs practiced in Delaware that year.
Delaware’s APRNs Obtained Full Practice Authority in July 2015
Delaware became the 22nd state to grant full practice authority to APRNs in July 2015. Senate Bill 57 with SA 1 changed the title of Advanced Practice Nurse (APN) to be Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRN). These nurses are now allowed to order and prescribe non-pharmacological interventions such as durable equipment and medical devices. This legislation also enables them to sign death certificates.
APRNs who were already practicing with a collaborative agreement on July 1, 2015 are no longer subject to this restriction. All new APRN graduates must now practice under a collaborative agreement for two years and at least 4,000 full-time hours before they can obtain full practice authority.
Salaries of Nurse Practitioners Throughout Delaware
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics provides a detailed analysis of the salaries of nurse practitioners in Delaware’s two major cities and nonmetropolitan area of Sussex County as of 2014. Nurse practitioners in this nonmetropolitan area earned the highest average salary:
Nurse Anesthetist Salaries in Nonmetropolitan Sussex County
Nurse anesthetists who practiced in the nonmetropolitan area of Sussex County and were in the top 90th percentile earned a salary so high that it exceeded that reported by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2014:
*This value is equal to or greater than $90/hour or $187,199/year. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics does not report salary data beyond this level.