The Pennsylvania Action Coalition (PA-AC), a program of the National Nurse-Led Care Consortium (NNCC), is thrilled to announce their new collaboration with the Geisinger School of Nursing to address nursing faculty and instructor shortages by creating Nurse Education, Practice, Quality, and Retention Clinical Faculty and Preceptor Academies (NEPQR-CFPAs). The collaborative is executing the program with funds awarded by the U.S Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), CDFA#93.359.
The purpose of the NEPQR-CFPA is to take steps to fill the faculty/instructor gap in schools of nursing and increase nursing workforce retention by leveraging staff nurses to participate as skilled preceptors and clinical instructors. The PA-AC and Geisinger, alongside numerous academic and health system partners, are building academic-clinical-community partnerships that develop and implement comprehensive and self-guided nurse education training curricula. The project is focusing on HHS Region 3 (including Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C.) to build a formal nurse education training curriculum to train clinical faculty and preceptors.
To develop this curriculum, the PA-AC assembled an Advisory Board that is reflective of diverse practice areas, academic pathways, geographic location, and populations served. The advisory board oversees curriculum development and determines metrics for review. The PA-AC is working with Advisory Board stakeholders to ensure that the course content is engaging, thoughtfully articulated, and caters to a wide audience. In year two of the project, Geisinger employees across the health system will pilot and evaluate the curriculum. The advisory board will use lessons learned to prepare the program for implementation across HHS Region 3 in Year Three.
The PA-AC is working with the Advisory Board and its extensive network to foster dialogue around the program’s goals and outcomes, promote the implementation of the program, and showcase the project as a model to bolster the nursing workforce. Ultimately, the purpose of the collaboration is to work across the region to improve the training, preparation, and availability of clinical nursing faculty and preceptors to better support nurses in advancing healthcare.
The Clinical Faculty and Preceptor Advisory Board is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of an award totaling $4 million dollars with no percentage financed with non-governmental sources. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by HRSA, HHS or the U.S. Government.
