Designing nursing excellence through a National Quality Forum nurse scholar program.

Closing the knowledge gap for current practicing nurses in the Institute of Medicine (IOM) core competencies is critical to providing safe patient care. The National Quality Forum (NQF) nurse scholar program is one organization's journey to close the gap in the IOM core competencies in a large teaching organization. The NQF nurse scholar program is positioned to provide a plan to assist current nurses to accelerate their learning about quality improvement, evidence-based practice, and informatics, 3 of the core competencies identified by the IOM, and focus on application of skills to NQF nurse-sensitive measures.

Centralizing a registered nurse preceptor program at the institutional level.

New nurses are traditionally oriented into their professional role by a registered nurse preceptor. This article describes the process of renovating and centralizing RN preceptor programs within the Department of Nursing in a multispecialty medical center in the Midwest. Outcomes of centralizing the preceptor program included involvement of nursing leaders, identification of methods of RN preceptor recognition, implementation of methods of improving institution-wide RN preceptor professional development, identification of opportunities for specialized RN preceptor classes and forums, creation of a tool to measure workload productivity, and finally, the formulation of a database to track performance and completion of orientation programs.