Implementation of a Mental Health Nursing Practicum in an Urban Homeless Shelter.

Background: People experiencing homelessness suffer from deficient access to health care and disproportionately poor health outcomes. The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) maintains learning competencies for prelicensure nursing students. Shelters are rich environments for students to garner experiences with the inequities plaguing our health care system and to fulfill AACN competencies.

Leveraging a Successful Faculty Practice Model to Recruit and Retain Early-Career Nurse Faculty.

Background: The shortage of nursing faculty is well documented as are the challenges of attracting and retaining early-career faculty, in part, due to difficulties transitioning expert clinicians into faculty roles.

Problem: There is little guidance in the literature describing successful formal transition models.

Approach: An urban College of Nursing Faculty Practice (CON FP) underwent an operational redesign beginning in 2014, resulting in an intentional success: a pipeline for attracting and developing early-career faculty.

Establishing nurse practitioner clinical practicums: Addressing fiscal realities.

As demand expands for nurse practitioner clinical practicum sites, the supply of preceptors is decreasing. The traditional model of in-kind clinical training is losing its foothold for a variety of reasons. A looming question is how quickly a "pay to precept" norm will grow and what will be the costs.

Care coordination to target patient complexity and reduce disparities in primary care.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to describe our Activation and Coordination Team (ACT) model for interprofessional care coordination in primary care and examine feasibility of using ACT medical and social complexity criteria to categorize patients into Quadrants that determine resource utilization. Research questions were: (a) Are there significant differences in demographic, medical, and social characteristics by Quadrant; (b) Do patients with combined high medical and social complexity differ from those with either high medical or social complexity; and (c) Is there an association between initial screening risk level and ACT Complexity Quadrant placement?

Design: Cross-sectional, descriptive.

Sample: Patients (N = 167) aged 18-65 enrolled in an urban Medicaid managed care network.

Primary care NPs: Leaders in population health.

A 2012 Institute of Medicine report calls primary and public healthcare workers to action, tasking them with working together to improve population health outcomes. A Practical Playbook released in 2014 enables this public health/primary care integration. Primary care NPs are in an excellent position to lead the charge and make this integration happen.

Nurse practitioner education: greater demand, reduced training opportunities.

Purpose: To document the factors that are increasing the tension between nurse practitioner (NP) educational programs and the clinical training sites needed for NP students.

Data Sources: Literature and the faculty experiences garnered over years of placing NP students for clinical training.

Conclusions: Several conditions converge to create a situation where sites are increasingly reluctant to precept NP students.

Factors Associated With Hospitalizations Among HIV-Infected Adults in the United States: Review of the Literature.

Although improving health outcomes in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected persons has been identified as a national priority, little is known about the factors associated with hospitalizations of HIV-infected persons in the highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) era. Since the introduction of HAART in 1996, there has been a dramatic increase in the life expectancy of HIV-infected persons. However, aging and the long term use of HIV medications have led to an increased incidence of chronic, non-HIV-related illnesses.

Advanced practice nursing students in the patient-centered medical home: preparing for a new reality.

Driven by reimbursement incentives for increased access, improved quality and reduced cost, the patient-centered medical home model of health care delivery is being adopted in primary care practices across the nation. The transition from traditional primary care models to patient-centered medical homes presents many challenges, including the assembly of a well-prepared, interprofessional provider team to achieve effective, well-coordinated care. In turn, advanced practice nursing education programs are challenged to prepare graduates who are qualified for practice in the new reality of health care reform.

Integrating gerontological content across advanced practice registered nurse programs.

Purpose: Faculty members across the country are faced with integrating gerontological content and competencies across advanced practice registered nurse (APRN) programs that focus on the adult-gerontology population. The purpose of this initiative was to effectively and efficiently integrate gerontological content into the adult management courses for several APRN programs in acute and primary care at one university's college of nursing.

Data Sources: Current literature, resources for integrating adult-gerontology content, course evaluations, and end of program surveys were used in this project.

Advance provision of emergency contraception for adolescents.

Emergency contraception is most effective at preventing unintended pregnancy when taken as early as possible following unprotected sexual intercourse. Advance provision of this medication supports more timely and effective use. In the midst of rising teen pregnancy rates, current policies often limit access to emergency contraception for adolescents.