12: THE DNP AND ACADEMIC–SERVICE PARTNERSHIPS ■ 291for clinical rotations within another hospital. Standardizing the affiliation agreements
and creating a “universal agreement” and a process whereby one centralized committee
reviewed and made decisions regarding student background checks and clinical rota-
tions would be the first big project of the ASPC.
Our ASPC partners were thrilled. This standardization improved efficiencies for
the clinical sites and the academic institutions. Overcoming the various nuances such as
how we processed the agreements and who held the clearance documents forced open
dialogues on both sides. The work included a representative from the health- system
corporate legal department, present at the table, who was involved. This helped to clear
legal concerns in real time and with a great degree of credibility.
The success of this inaugural project opened the doors for the development of
many projects to come. Today, the council creates its own annual strategic plan guid-
ing work for the coming year. There are open discussions regarding recruitment needs
of the hospitals and enrollment information from each of the participants is collected.
Information is shared openly across all schools of nursing. This is something that would
not have happened without the trust and collaboration built within the council. The
council communicates and celebrates its academic partnership success while providing
the cutting- edge industry information on an annual basis. This takes shape in the form
of an annual ASPC retreat. This retreat brings together deans and faculty from each of
our academic partners with nursing and education leaders from our hospitals. Topics
and presenters usually include some successful key partnership projects from the year,
as well as, expert presenters discussing national topics in health care. The event is spon-
sored by the health system as a token of thanks and appreciation for the past and future
engagements.
The theme as presented by the work nationally has been “Academic–Service
Partnerships: Building Bridges in a City of Bridges and Beyond.” The partnership to
enhance the student experience has taken shape in many ways that serve to address the
challenges listed early in its development.
The issue of faculty shortages is very real to our education partners. Natural col-
laboration began to occur based on geographical location between various university
partners and health- system hospitals. Soon, dedicated education units were born.
A dedicated education unit takes staff nurses on a hospital- based unit and pairs
them with students serving as their clinical instructor as they collaboratively care for a
group of patients. The nurses receive special training in providing nursing education
and guidance as they work with students in their unit. This training focused on educa-
tion practices, ethical– legal aspects of clinical education, teaching– learning strategies,
and clinical evaluation. This model mimics the physician clinical education model and
has been successfully replicated across the health system.
Another issue was finding enough student placements for the over- 3,000 entry-
level education clinical requirements needed by our education partners. Urban legend
dictated that students from two different schools should not be in the same unit at the
same time. The council challenged this practice specifically within one of the larger
health- system hospitals. Students from one school were paired with students from
another school in the same unit and, in some cases, within the same semi- private patient
room. This soon dispelled the long- held tradition offering greater opportunity for stu-
dent placement and flexibility.
Being part of a large system affords opportunity to access resources that others
may not have. The UPMC is on the leading edge of health care reform as a truly inte-
grated health care delivery and finance system. There is a team of government relations
staff providing updates to the nursing leaders in the organization. It was easy to see