Susan Sportsman

A Regional Simulation Center Partnership: Collaboration to Improve Staff and Student Competency

This article describes the development of a Regional Simulation Center by a hospital, university, and community college to provide competency education and validation for students, nurses, and other allied health staff. Using high-fidelity patient simulators and scenario-based simulations, bachelors of science in nursing-prepared laboratory mentors provide realistic opportunities for hospital staff and students to validate their clinical judgment as well as their psychomotor skills. The process of development, as well as the advantages of the partnership for the hospital and the nursing programs, is outlined.

ASSESSING Continued Competency Through Simulation: A Call for Stringent Action

This article proposes that simulation has potential as a method to validate critical and reflective thinking skills and continued competency of registered nurses. The authors recognize the challenges and benefits for using simulation in assessing competency. Furthermore, the authors stress that the potential use of simulation in competency testing cannot be achieved until educators and researchers acquire the specific knowledge and skills to make informed decisions and recommend policy.

Competency Education and Validation in the United States: What Should Nurses Know?

This article provides an overview of the progress in the past decade toward effectively documenting the initial and continuing competence of registered nurses.This article provides an overview of the progress in the past decade toward effectively documenting the initial and continuing competence of registered nurses.

Preparing faculty and students for an international nursing education experience.

As society becomes increasingly globalized, it is imperative to include international educational perspectives in the nursing profession. This article shares experiences of a university and hospital in facilitating education of students of nursing from India. It includes implementing partnerships, student selection process, and transcultural considerations. These considerations include faculty preparation for receiving students from India. In addition, ways to prepare Indian and U.S. students are examined.

Innovation in Nursing Education: A Statewide Grant Initiative

Meeting the challenges of the nursing shortage appears to be daunting for schools of nursing across the nation as they struggle to meet educational capacity needs with limited resources. A statewide grant program was developed and implemented through legislative initiatives providing opportunities for schools of nursing to respond to the need for innovation in nursing education. This article shares some of the successes and challenges identified through the process of implementing and evaluating this grant program. Insights into the political and regulatory process are provided as a model for other states to consider. Examples of educational strategies that were successful in improving the recruitment and retention of students and faculty are discussed. Nursing and other health care leaders across the nation should look to policy initiatives such as grant programs to infuse innovation into educational programs and to address educational capacity issues compounding the nursing shortage.

Creating tomorrow's leaders today: the Emerging Nurse Leaders Program of the Texas Nurses Association.

The Texas Nurses Association initiated an Emerging Nurse Leaders Program as an approach to engaging new nurses in the leadership of the professional association. This article explains the programs origin, the commitment of the Texas Nurses Association to this process, the implementation of the plan, and the discussions that launched a new way of connecting leaders across generations. Further, it is an approach that any professional organization can use to encourage the involvement of new leaders.