Sponsors and Board Share Canonical, Civil Missions.

In 1999, the Sisters of the Holy Cross and the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas came together, assessed the past, examined the present and created a new future for Trinity Health. Their goal was to preserve Catholic health care; their mission was to ensure that the human right to health care become a social right as part of a national understanding of promoting and providing for the general welfare. Thanks to the work of those prescient and courageous women religious, Trinity Health now is governed by a "mirror board" ­ a group of persons who carry canonical and civil responsibilities both as sponsors of Catholic Health Ministries and as directors of Trinity Health's civil board.

Evolving the practitioner-teacher role to enhance practice-academic partnerships: a literature review.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this article was to review the development of the practitioner-teacher model and its use in advancing clinical nursing. BACKGROUND: The practitioner-teacher role, or the unification model, incorporates clinical practice, teaching, consultation and research responsibilities for nurses serving in advanced clinical roles or as nursing faculty as part of professional nursing practice. The practitioner-teacher role facilitates a practice-academic partnership that can serve as a beneficial way to advance clinical nursing care. DESIGN: An exploratory literature review was conducted combined with review of practitioner-teacher and practice-academic exemplars. METHODS: A descriptive review of the practitioner-teacher model of nursing practice reveals that activities of the role include clinical nursing care, serving as a preceptor for nursing students in a focused area of expertise, consulting on patient care issues, presenting in-services and course lectures, and serving as a member of faculty and nursing division committees. RESULTS: The practitioner-teacher role lends itself to promoting practice-academic partnerships that combine clinical nursing care with professional nursing activities. CONCLUSIONS: The model of practice, education, consultation and research of the practitioner-teacher position advances practice-academic partnerships. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: The practitioner-teacher model serves to optimise the way nursing practice and academic work together to integrate knowledge, scholarship, service and learning and to advance the profession and the discipline of nursing. This article discusses aspects of the unique practice-academic partnership using the practitioner-teacher model, how the role evolved, and how it can improve clinical nursing care globally.

The role of the chief nurse officer in ensuring patient safety and quality.

Since 1999, dozens of organizations and hundreds of initiatives have emerged to improve the quality and safety of patient care, yet insufficient progress has been made. Attention has turned toward improving senior leadership team effectiveness. The authors describe a national project that examined the role of the senior leadership team in 8 hospitals in promoting quality and safety, with particular focus on the role of the chief nurse officer in this process.

Transitions and Transformations in Nursing Leadership.

The dialogue with Dr. Melanie Dreher focuses on a time of transition and her reflections on her career as a dean. Dr. Dreher shares from a personal and professional perspective.

Can the Institute of Medicine trump the dominant logic of nursing? Leading change in advanced practice education.

The Institute of Medicine (IOM; 2010) has called for a transformation of the nursing profession to lead the redesign of health care in the United States. It acknowledges the need for profound change in nursing education, particularly advanced practice education, to produce the next generation of leaders in sufficient quantity to expand access, improve quality, and reduce cost. Although the IOM provides welcome validation of nursing's significant role, most of the recommendations are not new and have been advocated by nurse educators for decades. What has prevented us from creating the nimble and responsive educational programs that would ensure a sufficient corpus of advanced practice nurses with the relevant knowledge and skill to transform our ailing health system? Conceptualizing nursing as a complex, adaptive system (J.W. Begun and K. White, 1997), this article explores three examples of the dominant logic, grounded in a historical legacy that has kept the nursing profession from realizing its promise as a potent force: (a) the continuing preference for experience over education, (b) the belief that only nurses can teach nurses, and (c) the hegemony of the research doctorate.

Advanced practice nursing students in the patient-centered medical home: preparing for a new reality.

Driven by reimbursement incentives for increased access, improved quality and reduced cost, the patient-centered medical home model of health care delivery is being adopted in primary care practices across the nation. The transition from traditional primary care models to patient-centered medical homes presents many challenges, including the assembly of a well-prepared, interprofessional provider team to achieve effective, well-coordinated care. In turn, advanced practice nursing education programs are challenged to prepare graduates who are qualified for practice in the new reality of health care reform. This article reviews the patient-centered medical home model and describes how one college of nursing joined 7 primary care physician practices to prepare advanced practice nursing students for the new realities of health care reform while supporting each practice in its transition to the patient-centered medical home.

Cultural competence in nursing: foundation or fallacy?

Propelled by a national concern with social justice and health disparities, the notion of cultural competency is being incorporated into both government regulation and professional standards. Although most of the standards that are being developed nationally apply at the institutional level, it is in the clinical setting where the expectation of cultural competency is the most demanding. The recommendations for clinicians to become culturally competent generally fall into 2 major categories. The first focuses on the content and structure of the clinical encounter between provider and patient. The second category charges providers with becoming knowledgeable about the cultures of their constituent patients and learning their lifestyles,health beliefs, and behaviors. Although individuals may belong to the same cultural group, the assumption that they are, in fact, the same, is an ecological fallacy. The health care system has nested the accountability for cultural competence with the clinician who provides direct services to individuals, where the application of cultural information is likely to be least useful. We contend that cultural competence is really nursing competence.