As DUSON continues the strategic plan implementation process, a clear vision is of utmost importance as we — faculty, staff, and students — engage in the process.

We're providing continuous communication to promote our strategic plan goals, strategies and process. For the last two months, we've featured articles on various aspects of the implementation process.

For the several weeks, we've featured more about the importance, goals and priority strategies of the six focus areas — Education, Research, Clinical Practice, Community Health Improvement, Global Health and People & Environment.

This week, we highlight Clinical Practice. The four goals identified for this area are:

1. Advance clinical excellence in faculty to provide exemplary patient care and extraordinary educational experiences.
2. Cultivate mutually beneficial opportunities with other health care organizations to design, test and implement clinical practice innovations.
3. Position DUSON as a valuable partner and recognized resource for patient-centered clinical practice and leadership.
4. Create clinical leaders in professional and scholarly practice.

The group identified three priority strategies to focus on for the 2016-2017 academic year:

1. Create diverse faculty practice and patient care models that are financially and logistically sustainable.
2. Align DUSON's appointment, promotion and tenure practices to reflect the value of clinical practice.
3. Work with Duke Health and other practice partners to develop clinical and scholarly collaborations that are mutually beneficial.

Let's hear from Executive Sponsors Valerie Sabol and Katherine Pereira on what this all means.

Q: Why are the goals for clinical practice so important?

Pereira: As a top ranked School of Nursing, we need expert faculty to teach our students the most up to date aspects of medical care. We educate hundreds of advanced practice nurses every year. The clinical faculty teaching these students are required to maintain an active clinical practice so that our nurse practitioner (NP) programs can remain accredited by our national regulatory bodies. Thus we need to create and maintain venues for our NP faculty to practice their clinical skills and scholarly activities (strategy 1). Additionally, our NP faculty need validation and recognition for their clinical expertise and the time required to maintain clinical skills as part of the appointment, promotion and tenure (APT) process (strategy 1.3). Partnerships with the Duke University Health System (DUHS) and DUSON also create opportunities for our students to conduct their scholarly activities around implementation science and generation of new knowledge for the profession (strategy 2).

Q: Why were your three priority strategies chosen?

Sabol: These strategies grew out of the discussions of the strategic planning committee and input from Track II faculty. We have seen consistent challenges for DUSON faculty in acquiring clinical practice opportunities for many years. Finding a site for faculty practice has historically taken up to three to four years for some faculty. The APT process has focused on evidence of scholarly activity with a traditional gold standard of publications. Although published manuscripts are still outstanding models of scholarly accomplishments, there are other activities that have are high impact to the nursing profession.These might include practice redesign activities, creation of clinical practice recommendations and health policy work.

Q: What do you and your team hope to accomplish before the end of this calendar year?

Pereira: We are already in discussions with the APT Committee on the redesign of promotion criteria for Track II faculty and this work is moving forward nicely.

Sabol: We have assembled key players within DUHS that are involved in the hiring process for advanced practice nurses and other nurses within the institution. We are gathering information on the current models of faculty practice in the school to identify best practices and current barriers to faculty practice. We also plan to inquire our benchmarking institutions to learn about other models we can learn from. We are also looking at financial modeling related to faculty practice.

Pereira: Related to strategy 2, the Duke Advancement of Nursing, Center of Excellence (DANCE) collaboration between DUSON and DUHS is a perfect venue where many of our goals can be accomplished. Launched in 2015, DANCE provides the infrastructure to match the clinical expertise and needs of DUHS with the research expertise and theoretical insight of DUSON.

Past Strategic Planning Updates

Strategic Plan Update: Leading and Accelerating Nursing Science and Its TranslationStrategic Plan Update: Becoming the Destination for Outstanding TalentStrategic Plan Update: Preparing Nursing Leaders Who Will Shape the FutureStrategic Plan Update: Taking DUSON to the World and Bringing the World to DUSONStrategic Plan Update: Collaborating With the Community to Advance HealthStrategic Plan Update: We're Ready for Take Off & Want You Onboard