Leveraging Academic-Community Partnerships for Clinical Placements: Everybody Wins

In the current economic climate, the demands our clinical partners face are ever increasing. Decreased staffing and increased productivity expectations are common during these times, and the resulting impact on clinical placement availability for APRN students is significant. APRN training programs are constantly charged with finding creative ways to incentivize the clinical placement process, which often includes finding ways that student clinical rotations will benefit the needs of the agency as well as the student.

This presentation will discuss how the Department of Family Health Care Nursing has leveraged public and private funding to increase capacity and sustainability in area school health centers (SHCs) supported by the Atlantic Philanthropies “Elev8” project, through faculty and student involvement. Among its many benefits, this grant has provided PNP, FNP and dental students with a variety of service learning opportunities to deliver high quality physical, mental and dental health services, case management, and health education to students in several Elev8 schools. The partnership also includes faculty practice, with 3 of our nursing faculty practicing and precepting at different SHCs, which not only assists the SHCs to provide improved access for their students but also furthers their billing and outreach capacity. NP students also engage in faculty-mentored quality improvement projects at each site, developing their own skills in using the PDSA model for project planning and meanwhile helping each SHC achieve its goals for evaluation and improvement. All learning experiences also offer students the ability to integrate and demonstrate principles of cultural humility as they provide service to diverse and vulnerable populations.