Fundraising for Accelerated Study for the PhD in Nursing: A Community Partnership.

This article describes fundraising strategies by a School of Nursing to support a post-master's accelerated (3-year) PhD degree program. A sample proposal to solicit funds is included, as well as a contract that students sign before accepting the scholarship and agreeing to teach for 3 years or repay the money. The first campaign raised $2.

The ABCs of the doctor of nursing practice: assessing resources, building a culture of clinical scholarship, curricular models.

The Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree prepares nurses to provide comprehensive care across sites and over time. It is absolutely crucial-for both patient care and the nursing profession-that broadly recognized standards of competency for these new practitioners be established. The Council for the Advancement of Comprehensive Care has met since 2000 to build consensus on competency standards and a process for certifying these graduates.

Calculating graduation rates.

In recent years, the focus has been on increasing the number of registered nurse (RN) graduates. Numerous states have initiated programs to increase the number and quality of students entering nursing programs, and to expand the capacity of their programs to enroll additional qualified students. However, little attention has been focused on an equally, if not more, effective method for increasing the number of RNs produced-increasing the graduation rate of students enrolling.

The cost of doing business in nursing education.

The production cost of delivering education to health profession students, with a special emphasis on the Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree, is explored using a revenue-based approach. In spite of the national concern regarding the nursing shortage, there are surprisingly minimal data in the literature specific to analyzing the per nursing student cost that would be necessary to plan enrollment expansion. Models of cost analysis and findings for other health professions are discussed.

The hidden error of mismanaged pain: a systems approach.

Undertreatment of pain resulting in physiological, psychosocial, and economic consequences continues despite targeted improvement approaches. Starck et al. propose a systems framework for study of pain management errors.

Changing acute pain management outcomes in surgical patients.

Patient outcome studies indicate that patients accept pain as part of hospitalization. The majority of hospitalized patients who report experiencing pain are recovering from surgical intervention. To achieve successful outcomes, a comprehensive multidisciplinary effort must begin preoperatively and continue through discharge.