Postgraduate fellowship education and training for nurses: the NET SMART experience.

The Neurovascular Education and Training in Stroke Management and Acute Reperfusion Therapy (NET SMART) program for advanced practice nursing (APN) offers a first-of-its-kind, academic, postgraduate, fellowship program for APNs that is modeled after physician academic fellowship programs but supported by a flexible Internet-based platform. This article details the rationale, methods, and preliminary results of the NET SMART APN experience, which serves as a unique template for the development of academic postgraduate nursing fellowship programs across a variety of specialty practices.

The impact of nurse-directed patient education on quality of life and functional capacity in people with heart failure.

Purpose: The purpose of this research was to evaluate the impact of a nurse-directed approach to patient education, which focused on lifestyle modification, daily weight management, diet, and medication compliance to improve the quality of life (QOL) and functional capacity in people with heart failure.

Data Sources: This was a prospective quasiexperimental multicenter research study of 23 patients comparing a nurse-directed care (NC) group (n = 13), which received comprehensive disease management education and weekly telephone follow-up, and the routine care (RC) group (n = 10) that received protocol-driven medical management. The study length was 12 months.