| Project Leaders: |
Tim Cortez, Program Officer
Tcortez@coloradohealth.org, 303.953.3636
Deborah Center, Project Director – Clinical Placement
deb@coloradonursingcenter.org, 303.715.0343 x 14
Kathy Kennedy, Project Director – Nursing Fellowship
kkennedy@du.edu, 303.871.3483 |
The mission of The Colorado Health Foundation is to improve the health and health care of Coloradans through leadership, philanthropy and education. To achieve this mission, we focus on two goals:
- To improve access to quality health care
- To empower people to take charge of their health.
Addressing nursing workforce issues is linked to both goals. We cannot achieve our goals unless we have an adequate workforce to deliver the care and assist patients and families with managing their health.
Our project will develop a nursing fellowship program and create a web-based clinical placement system. The exact content and format of the fellowship program is being worked through now and is being vetted with a key group of nursing stakeholders in the community. The design will take into consideration the essential role that nurses play in patient safety and as leaders of systems change and innovation in care delivery. Our partner, The Regional Institute for Health and Environmental Leadership, is spearheading the design of this program.
One serious bottleneck in the education of nurses is the availability of effective clinical learning opportunities. Competition for clinical rotation sites strains collegial relationships among schools and practice settings and has an impact on the preparedness and satisfaction of new graduates. Solutions to this problem require collaboration. To that end, TCHF has partnered with Colorado Center for Nursing Excellence to develop an interactive web-based clinical placement system. The interactive web-based system would track and coordinate actual and potential placements allowing organizations to maximize current placements and to explore new and alternative opportunities. Such a system may also allow organizations to expand enrollments in schools of nursing and a greater ability to meet students’ learning objectives.
CCNE has been the project lead for a collaboration that has been working together for more than a year. The key stakeholders involved include The Center, The Alliance for Clinical Education, Colorado Area Health Education Center, The Colorado Consortium for Nurse Educators, The Colorado Organization of Nurse Leaders, and the Work, Education and Lifelong Learning Simulation (WELLS) Center. |
For the Clinical Placement Inventory and Matching System, the goals are:
- Maximize efficient and effective use of existing clinical placements
- Expand Placement opportunities
- Place students on the basis of specific learning objectives
For the fellowship program, we hope to develop a cadre of nurse leaders who can be effective change agents in institutional and educational arenas. As part of this project, our partner, RIHEL, will be developing an evaluation plan to measure the outcomes of the project.
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