School of Health Sciences

Assessment of current nursing education pedagogies is necessary to evaluate how nursing faculty prepare future nurses for today’s interprofessional collaborative healthcare practice settings. Increased complexity of patient care requires registered nurses to practice interprofessional collaborative care once in the practice setting. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to describe and understand the process of nurse educators teaching interprofessional collaboration to student nurses in a Louisiana pre-licensure baccalaureate-nursing program. Integrating interprofessional concepts and competencies in the classroom and clinical practice settings is vital in teaching students to perform successfully in current complex, bureaucratic, interprofessional care environments.

Most health professional students spend a significant amount of their education in a clinical setting. These settings help students develop patient-centered care that is rooted in evidence and dynamic in design and socialize them to be able to engage in collaborative practice. Typically, students involved in inter-professional education (IPE) activities develop team building skills that focus on the function of a team and the role identities of its members, yet little opportunity exists for students to develop collaborative skills in clinical practice. Among the many factors that contribute to the lack of exposure to team-functioning in a clinical setting, the most important is logistics.

The use of the Internet and its associated technology in education are necessities at the 21st century university. Nursing faculty has, and continues to be, influenced by changes in the manner in which education is delivered. The changes are superimposed upon the traditional scholarship roles involving teaching, research, and service. In order to expand available knowledge about the overall influence of the Internet, the problem specifically addressed in this study was the lack of understanding of how the Internet is influencing higher education nursing faculty with regard to teaching, research, and service.

This applied research was designed to investigate the perceived relationship between using Human Patient Simulators learning basic nursing skills and to examine the influences of faculty and environment on the nursing curriculum. Face-to-face audiotape interviews were conducted with 10 nursing students who were in their junior year of a 4-year baccalaureate-nursing program.

The implementation of telehealth services can be negatively impacted when health care providers identify the process as being disruptive and challenging. This investigation focused on primary care health care providers’ views about barriers faced during the adoption of telehealth alternatives. The problem that elicited this research was the difficulty primary care providers have when integrating telehealth into their daily routines. The purpose of this study was to understand the lived experiences and reactions of primary care providers throughout the adoption and implementation of telehealth services. A qualitative phenomenological study was conducted to explore attitudes, principles, and observations of health care providers during the implementation and transitional period of telehealth.

Nursing schools face the challenge of improving student academic performance and completion rates. The current supply of newly graduated nurses fails to meet the increasing demands of society. In 2009, Cochise College responded by implementing a major change in their curriculum to improve student retention and academic performance. The problem identified by Cochise Community College was that they were uncertain if the significant curriculum changes implemented in 2009 led to improved student academic achievement or program completion.

Scope of Study: This quantitative study was designed to compare RNs in urban and rural regions of selected mid-Atlantic states, to examine the differences geographic location has on employment decisions, and to describe the relationship among factors that influence the recruitment and retention of RNs. A post-test only control design was used to address the research questions and test the differences between factors. Fifteen hundred nurses were randomly selected from states representing the mid-Atlantic states. Of the 1500 survey questionnaires distributed, 429 were returned, for a response rate of 29%.