The Integrated Nursing Pathway: An Innovative Collaborative Model to Increase the Proportion of Baccalaureate-Prepared Nurses.

This manuscript describes a collaborative, seamless program between a community college and a university college of nursing designed to increase the number of nurses prepared with a baccalaureate degree. The three-year Integrated Nursing Pathway provides community college students with a non-nursing associate degree, early introduction to nursing, and seamless progression through BSN education. The model includes dual admission and advising and is driven by the need for collaboration with community colleges, the need to increase the percentage of racial-ethnic minority students, the shortage of faculty, and employer preferences for BSN graduates.

The new fundamentals in nursing: introducing beginning quality and safety education for nurses' competencies.

This article describes the redesign of the fundamentals of nursing course using an organizing framework and teaching strategies identified in the Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) initiative. Six QSEN competencies (patient-centered care, teamwork and collaboration, evidence-based practice, quality improvement, safety, and informatics) are essential for nursing practice. Beginning knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSAs) associated with each competency were identified in a preliminary Delphi survey as important to incorporate early in prelicensure nursing curricula. Redesign requires a shift in focus from task-training and psychomotor skills development to incorporation of a systems context, reflecting redefined values and interventions associated with safety, quality, and professional nursing roles. A course revision, based on the QSEN competencies definitions, selected beginning KSAs, exemplar resources, and teaching strategies, is described. The reframing of fundamentals of nursing is essential to prepare new graduates for contemporary practice.

A national Delphi to determine developmental progression of quality and safety competencies in nursing education.

Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) faculty outlined 6 competency domains: patient-centered care, teamwork and collaboration, evidence-based practice, quality improvement, safety, and informatics. In this study, 18 subject matter experts participated in a web-based modified Delphi survey between October 2008 and February 2009 to determine whether there was consensus on the developmental progression of knowledge, skill, and attitude elements within the QSEN competencies. Support for creation of curricular threads to facilitate student progressive achievement of the QSEN competencies was validated. Competency development related to the individual patient was emphasized early in the curriculum, whereas teams and systems were emphasized later. Complex concepts such as teamwork and collaboration, evidence-based practice, quality improvement, and informatics were emphasized in advanced courses. Experts outlined a developmental approach in curriculum design, which would potentially encourage practice, reinforcement of learning, and recognition of context of care.

Alliance for Clinical Education (ACE): setting community standards through collaboration.

Today's clinical nursing education challenges center around managing complex issues related to clinical placements. The increased numbers and varying levels of nursing students, acuity and intensity of the clinical setting, and rise of regulatory and accrediting mandates provided impetus for the establishment of the Alliance for Clinical Education (ACE). This article describes community standards established by partnering educational programs and clinical agencies in the Denver, Colorado, and surrounding areas. ACE is successfully confronting the challenges of effectively using scarce clinical placements, validating student orientation mandates, and facilitating the availability and development of qualified clinical faculty. Examples of tools and resources created by ACE to provide uniformity in meeting mutual expectations and requirements are described. The power of collaboration and sharing expertise is described by current initiatives, which reflect the ability to influence policy and shape community standards to support excellence in clinical nursing education.

Clinical Scholar Model: providing excellence in clinical supervision of nursing students.

The Clinical Scholar Model (CSM) is a practice-education partnership focused on improving the outcomes of clinical nursing education by bridging the academic and service settings. An expert clinical nurse serves as a clinical scholar (CS) to coordinate, supervise, and evaluate the clinical education of nursing students in collaboration with school of nursing faculty. This article describes the model's evolution, how the model is differentiated from traditional clinical instruction roles and responsibilities, and the benefits to the collaborating clinical agency and school of nursing.

A model to identify direct costs of nursing education: the Colorado experience.

During spring 2003, national, state, and local economic factors converged in a manner that propelled us to better identify the costs of the educational programs offered within the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center School of Nursing (SON). Two factors prompted analysis of direct costs of the nursing education programs: a shrinking state appropriation and a 36.7% rescission of state funds during that academic year. The SON supports 618 students in four programs (baccalaureate, master of science, doctor of nursing, and doctor of philosophy). During summer 2003, the SON leadership team met numerous times in an iterative process to clarify assumptions and make recommendations in an attempt to cost out academic programs. Data were obtained from a variety of sources. The SON Office of Budget and Finance provided revenue and expense data. The Office of Academic Affairs provided course schedules, the course offering plan, and projected student enrollment in courses. The Division Chairs provided data concerning faculty workload and faculty areas of expertise. The data were compiled in Access tables and arrayed in a series of Excel spreadsheets that captured course data and faculty data. A "what-if" analysis was completed to determine cost of a pilot accelerated baccalaureate program. This method provides a dynamic analytic system shown to be prospectively and retrospectively effective. As a result of this analysis, the following metrics are available: direct cost per student per course/program; revenue per student per course/program; faculty teaching FTE; and faculty-to-student ratio.