Engaging Clinical Partners in Curricular Initiatives to Improve Practice Readiness

Abstract

Background: The release of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing's updated Essentials creates an opportunity for nursing programs and clinical partners to collaborate on strengthening curricula and improving new graduate practice readiness. This scoping literature review examined published models for collaborating with clinical partners on curricular initiatives to guide this process. Method: Three electronic databases were searched for peer-reviewed articles describing models for collaborating with clinical partners when revising nursing curricula to improve practice readiness. The final sample included seven articles representing five models developed for prelicensure undergraduate education. Results: Themes identified among the models were creating a shared mission, leadership support and involvement, representative committees with regular meetings, clear role expectations, collaboratively determining concepts and competencies, and developing training and resources for consistent implementation of changes. Conclusion: These themes provide recommendations for engaging clinical partners in the process of integrating the new Essentials in curricula and improving graduates' practice readiness. [ J Nurs Educ . 2023;62(12):706–710.]