Hospital/nursing school partnerships widen the new nurse pipeline

Forging partnerships with the deans of local colleges of nursing is one concrete step chief nursing officers (CNOs) can take to help expand schools’ capacity, according to AONL member Caroline Njau, MBA, RN, senior vice president of patient care services and CNO of Children's Minnesota, Minneapolis. Njau described her efforts to widen the new nurse pipeline in a recent interview with HealthLeaders Media. The article also describes academic/practice partnerships in Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri and Oklahoma. In related news, Nashville-based HCA Healthcare plans to open a nursing school in Virginia through its affiliated Galen College of Nursing, based in Louisville, Ky. U.S. nursing schools turned away 80,407 qualified applicants from baccalaureate and graduate nursing programs in 2019 because of various capacity constraints. (HealthLeaders Media article, 11/15/21)