Career Adaptability: An Innovative Measurement to Aid Professional Development of New Graduate Nurses.

This cross-sectional quantitative study explored career adaptability and career intentions in newly licensed nurses working in acute care hospitals throughout North Carolina. Data were analyzed from 277 registered nurses completing an online study instrument. Findings demonstrate a relationship between levels of career adaptability and career intentions, offering career adaptability as a new measurement to explore newly licensed nurses' desire to pursue career and educational change and expand transition programs to include developing career trajectories within organizations.

Nurses: Call to Action to Run for an Elected Office, Lessons From a State Senate Candidate.

Nurses are experienced leaders, understand how to improve quality and access to care, and have the essential skills to be an elected official. Knowing the key tasks to running a campaign is critical to achieving an elected office role. This article presents a call to action for nurse leaders, advice on running for office, and lessons learned from a nurse running for State Senate.

A Call for North Carolina to Surround the Seriously Ill and Caregivers with Interprofessional Collaborative Teams.

As the population ages, the number of people living with serious illness is increasing and the demand for quality, timely, person-centered palliative care is growing. We need specialized, trained health professionals working in collaborative teams to answer this call. It is upon health care leaders and policymakers to jointly design, build, and sustain a workforce to ensure all North Carolinians have access to care during a serious illness or end of life.

Developing an Innovative Statewide Infrastructure and Model for Delivering Continuing Interprofessional Education: The North Carolina AHEC Initiative.

Introduction: North Carolina AHEC (NC AHEC) leadership recognized that continuing interprofessional education (CIPE) is vital for improving patient care and outcomes. Rather than train and educate in professional silos, interprofessional education presented an opportunity to reframe continuing education (CE) to improve the integration of care delivery and outcomes.

Methods: In April 2014, two regional AHECs collaborated to design a statewide initiative for AHEC CE leaders, CE professionals, and CE faculty to learn about integrating interprofessional education into CE planning and implementation.

Developing Tomorrow's Leaders: A Medical Student Distinction Track in Health System Transformation and Leadership.

Problem: Calls for medical education reform focus on preparing physicians to meet the challenges of today's complex health care system. Despite implementing curricula focused on health systems science (HSS), including quality improvement (QI), patient safety, team-based care, and population health, a significant gap remains in training students to meet the system's evolving needs.

Approach: Brody School of Medicine redesigned its curriculum to prepare leaders to effect health system change.

The Teachers of Quality Academy: Evaluation of the Effectiveness and Impact of a Health Systems Science Training Program.

This project aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a faculty development program in health systems science (HSS)-the Teachers of Quality Academy (TQA). Participants in TQA and a comparison group were evaluated before, during, and 1 year after the program using self-perception questionnaires, tests of HSS knowledge, and tracking of academic productivity and career advancement. Among program completers (n = 27), the mean self-assessed ratings of knowledge and skills of HSS topics immediately after the program, as compared to baseline, increased significantly compared to controls (n = 30).

Preliminary evaluation of an adolescent positive health measurement scale: a salutogenic health promotion approach.

Health measurement tools typically assess indicators of poor health by identifying the absence, or presence, of disease and risk factors. This article describes development and validation of the first instrument for measurement of adolescent engagement in positive health promoting actions from a salutogenic approach. This cross-sectional study of 406 youths 14-16 years old tested the validity and reliability of the Salutogenic Wellness Promotion Scale for Adolescents (SWPS-Adol) and examined the extent to which SWPS-Adol positively correlated with and was able to predict perceived health among this population.

Nicaraguan and US nursing collaborative evaluation study: Identifying similarities and differences between US and Nicaraguan curricula and teaching modalities using the community engagement model.

Background: Curricula evaluation is an essential phase of curriculum development. Study describes the implementation of a formative evaluation used by faculty members between Universidad Nacional Autonóma de Nicaragua (UNAN-Leon) Escuela de Enfermeriá, Nicaragua and East Carolina University College of Nursing (ECU CON) in North Carolina, US.

Objectives: Program evaluation study to conduct an assessment, comparison of a medical-surgical adult curriculum and teaching modalities.

Capitalizing on Military Nurse Skills for Second-Career Leadership and Staff Development Roles.

Nursing continues to face professional workforce and diversity shortage problems. This article advocates for examining an untapped resource-the consideration of applicants for nursing leadership and educational positions in civilian health care organizations. This untapped resource is highly qualified, already retired (or going to be separated) military nurse officers (MNOs) who possess extensive health care knowledge, as well as distinctive ethnicity and gender composition.

The Teachers of Quality Academy: A Learning Community Approach to Preparing Faculty to Teach Health Systems Science.

Problem: Although efforts to integrate health systems science (HSS) topics, such as patient safety, quality improvement (QI), interprofessionalism, and population health, into health professions curricula are increasing, the rate of change has been slow.

Approach: The Teachers of Quality Academy (TQA), Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University, was established in January 2014 with the dual goal of preparing faculty to lead frontline clinical transformation while becoming proficient in the pedagogy and curriculum design necessary to prepare students in HSS competencies. The TQA included the completion of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement Open School Basic Certificate in Quality and Safety; participation in six 2-day learning sessions on key HSS topics; completion of a QI project; and participation in three online graduate courses.

Enabling nurses to lead change: the orientation experiences of nurses to boards.

Objectives: Nurses need to be full partners in shaping health care and health care policy. One way to do this is to be present and active on boards at all levels. The purpose of this study is to examine the orientation experiences of nurses to boards and their preparation to influence health care and health care policy.