Building coalitions: A statewide nursing organization's role in changing nursing education regulation during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The California Association of Colleges of Nursing (CACN), representing California's baccalaureate and higher degree nursing education programs, has raised concerns for over two-years about the number, relevance, and legitimacy of nursing education regulations. Formal CACN letters to state regulators did not affect change. While California nursing education regulations require 75% direct patient contact for all clinical courses, meeting this requirement became impossible as clinical agencies closed to nursing students during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nursing regulatory change was urgently needed to provide greater flexibility in meeting clinical course objectives using simulation and other online learning modalities. At stake was the graduation of over 14,971 RN students from public and private nursing programs. While state regulators opposed a legislative approach, CACN collaborated with stakeholders to support legislation that led to a reduction in direct patient care hours, allowing nursing students to progress and graduate. This longstanding advocacy work was accelerated by the pandemic and required leadership and knowledge about the legislative process for nurse educators to succeed. The ultimate goal for CACN is to forge a more respectful relationship and greater collaboration between educators and regulators to enhance quality, reduce costs, and redundancies in nursing education in this state.

Using innovative models in transition to practice and Master's Entry programs to teach ambulatory and primary care nursing.

With advancements in health care and changes in reimbursement that contribute to shorter hospitalizations, health care delivery is increasingly shifting to other settings to include skilled nursing, home care, and outpatient areas. There is a well-documented shortage of hospital-based capacity for clinical placements in California. The need for clinical placements is creating an opportunity to utilize ambulatory care settings as innovative alternative learning experiences for prelicensure nursing students. Care coordination, health coaching, and population health management are examples of skills useful for all RNs that ambulatory care settings offer as learning experiences for nursing students. The skills and knowledge students gain in ambulatory care are valuable for a wide range of employment settings. Additionally, these alternative settings provide faculty other clinical placement options since acute care placements are difficult to secure and sustain. The University of San Francisco (USF), School of Nursing and Health Professions (SONHP) developed two educational models to prepare nurses for complex disease management. One was a post-graduate new RN program that focused on outpatient/ambulatory care, the Transition to Practice Program (TTP). The other was a prelicensure Master's-Entry Master's of Science in Nursing (ME-MSN) program that has an ambulatory and acute care pathway.

Statewide political activism for California academic nursing leaders.

The California Association of Colleges of Nursing (CACN) is a not-for-profit, non-partisan nursing organization whose members are the universities' Schools of Nursing that offer baccalaureate and graduate degree programs in California. The nursing deans and directors are the individuals who attend scheduled statewide meetings and actualize the mission, vision, and governance of this organization. Starting in 2011, CACN began a journey toward greater political activism that was initiated by strategic planning. During the Spring 2017 meeting, forty-four California nursing deans/directors advanced their advocacy by attending prescheduled visits with California legislators. The goals for meetings with California policy makers included: 1. Inform them about CACN as an organization and its sphere of influence and 2. Educate them about CACN's perspective on current bills in the California legislature. This manuscript details a process to assist other state organizations to move toward political activism in support of the nursing profession from the academic nursing leadership perspective.

The power of nursing: An innovative course in values clarification and self-discovery.

Teaching for a practice is more than the dissemination of knowledge and information to the learner. Professional nursing education requires teachers to facilitate students' self-reflection and awareness and assimilation of core professional and personal values in order for the new nurse to anchor and internalize these values as part of a professional identity. To achieve this, nursing educators recognize the importance of learning opportunities centered in the affective domain and the importance of teaching for professional formation that supports nursing students' commitment to the values of their chosen community of practice. This paper describes the development, implementation and evaluation of a learning innovation for pre-RN students. The Power of Nursing: Embracing the Healer's Art, a five-session, 15-hour discovery model course that uses guided reflection and personal sharing is described, as are course outcomes for 68 students from four nursing schools in the U.S. Overall students' reports were strongly favorable and the learning experience was valued and identified as unique within the nursing curriculum.

NEXus: Making Efficient Use of Limited Resources.

Faculty to teach and mentor doctoral nursing students are and will continue to be in short supply. Coupled with ever-increasing resource-constricted educational environments, doctoral programs are challenged to provide high-quality education with limited resources. The Nursing Education Exchange (NEXus) is a viable solution to help meet that challenge. This article presents an overview of the origins and evolution of NEXus, financial considerations, and basic steps for joining NEXus, along with 4 exemplars. NEXus has continued to grow since its inception in 2007. In 2015, the number of NEXus schools reached 20, with 11 schools offering both doctor of philosophy and doctor of nursing practice courses. Currently, NEXus offers over 160 courses, organized into 14 clusters such as gerontology and chronic illness. Recently, a collaboration between the National Hartford Centers of Gerontological Nursing Excellence and NEXus was formalized. This collaboration prepares faculty to address an aging population. In summary, in an era of increased demand for doctoral prepared nurses, a lack of qualified doctoral nursing faculty, and limited financial resources, the NEXus collaborative provides a model for optimal resource sharing.

Job satisfaction and turnover intention among Jordanian nurses in psychiatric units.

Psychiatric nursing has been identified as a stressful occupation, and this stress could affect individuals' health, well-being, and job satisfaction. The stress of nurses might also affect the organization in terms of absenteeism and quality of care. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between job satisfaction and turnover intention among Jordanian nurses in the psychiatric units of the Jordanian National Mental Health Center. A descriptive, correlational, cross-sectional design was used. Nurses were asked to complete a demographic data sheet and questionnaires regarding job satisfaction and turnover intention. Of the 179 questionnaires distributed, 154 were completed, with an 86% response rate. The results revealed a statistically-significant negative relationship between job satisfaction and turnover intention. The findings of the study are consistent with previous research regarding the negative relationship between job satisfaction and turnover intention. The findings provide new information about Jordanian nurses who work in government hospital psychiatric services.

Success indicators for an accelerated masters entry nursing program: staff RN performance.

The purpose of this exploratory research study was to assess employment performance outcomes of students who completed the prelicensure segment of an accelerated graduate entry program, the Masters Entry Program in Nursing (MEPN) at the University of California, San Francisco. MEPN RNs and their managers at three study sites completed a survey constructed from staff RN performance criteria position descriptions and participated in focus groups. Data were used to evaluate staff RN employment performance and how well the educational program prepared students for the staff RN role. Findings indicate that MEPN RNs' self-assessment and their managers' performance evaluation were rated as very effective in their staff RN roles, regardless of years of nursing experience. Recommendations for further research are discussed, encouraging the use of employment performance criteria as an additional way to evaluate the quality of nursing educational programs.