Forming academic/community partnerships to help alleviate the clinical placement crisis

Abstract

Purpose of the article: The finite number of traditional clinical placements in acute care settings is creating pressure for nursing education programs. This article describes the design and successful implementation of a non-traditional, academic clinical partnership established between a faith-based community partner and a baccalaureate nursing degree-granting academic institution.

Design/method: The authors lay out a novel partnership-development concept and operationalize that concept through real-world examples. The goal of the collaborative was to screen clients of the community partner to identify cognitive impairment within this population. Additionally, nursing students were exposed to a collaborative, research project between the academic and community partner.

Findings: The collaborative partnership met mutual goals. Eighty nursing students contacted over 1,400 clients, completed telephone screening of over 1,000 active clients, and performed over 75 in-home assessments for clients of the faith-based community agency.  The tools used identified that approximately 30% of the community partners’ clients were living with some form of cognitive impairment.

Conclusions: Both academic and community partners found the partnership effective. Over 80% of students rated the clinical experience 4 or higher on a 5-point Likert scale. Students reported satisfaction and demonstrated increased sensitivity to independent community-dwelling seniors. The community partner was able to incorporate the tools used in the project into their routine screening process for all clients.