Abstract:

Innovation is required in undergraduate nursing education to address changes in practice models, trending demographics, and healthcare reform. Nurses are the largest licensed professional health care group and are pivotal to the improvement of population health and health outcomes. These changes require that nurses have the skills and abilities as well as demonstrate behaviors that are aligned with their required role as a leader. However, most undergraduate nursing programs focus on clinical skills and lend very little to no attention to developing students leadership capacity and leadership efficacy. Moreover, based on preconceived perceptions of a nurse’s role, nursing students may not realize the importance of developing leadership skills and such an approach is not often a part of their education. Since many nursing majors do not operate in an environment where leadership skills are fostered, proactive and intentional work geared to the development of leadership skills in nursing is requisite for such students to become effective change agents. Given today's changing health care climate and the looming nursing shortage, there is a need for developing a cadre of strong, innovative leaders to attract to and retain within the nursing work force to deliver quality patient care that will ensure fiscally sound health care. Traditionally, nursing leaders have arisen more from legacy, using trial and error approaches, achieving greater administrative responsibility by way of longevity of service rather than from thoughtful succession planning, an approach commonly used in the business arena. To accelerate and positively support leadership development among young, talented nursing students, deliberate steps must be taken by nursing programs in higher education. This is particularly true since 55% of current nursing leaders plan to retire between 2011 and 2020. When succession planning for our future nurse leaders is absent, a safe patient care setting as well as leadership stability, service continuity, and job satisfaction are affected.

To that end, an innovative leadership program was piloted at the College of Nursing and Health Professionals at a large private university in the Northeastern region of the United States. This program supports students to take an active stance in leadership development. Assessment of student nurses’ interests in becoming leaders, their temperament and readiness to learn, their individual strengths, and willingness to step forward were examined and those meeting inclusions criteria (e.g., committed to fully engage and participate in the program, be a student in good standing and at the junior level for achievement of certain clinical skills, a willingness to challenge him/herself) enrolled . 18 Junior level students, self- selected and voluntarily enrolled in this 12 month program that encompassed six courses whereby they were concurrently enrolled in their traditional courses. While leadership development was the primary purpose of the program, secondary objectives included enhancing students competence in interprofessional learning and furthering development of cultural sensitivity and awareness.

This presentation will discuss (i) the content of each course; (ii) describe the interactive, action-oriented teaching methods used for in class and experiential learning, and (iii) discuss outcomes from each course evaluated through descriptive quantitative analysis and qualitative thematic analysis.

Keywords:

Leadership, innovation, curriculum, undergraduate nursing education.