| Learning Objective #1: Describe strategies that strengthen the link among communities, practice, and scholarship in nurse-managed primary care settings | |||
| Learning Objective #2: Examine the lessons learned in one academic faculty practice network for applicability in own practice setting |
The purposes of academic nursing centers are to improve the health of communities; create learning environments for nursing students at all levels; and to generate, test and apply nursing knowledge. Of these, the integration of scholarship into nurse managed practice is the most difficult to achieve. This presentation describes the linkage of practice and scholarship in a longstanding Faculty Practice Network partnered with several rural Appalachian communities.
Strategies for strengthening scholarship in nurse managed practice include alignment of service-teaching-practice-scholarship mission; faculty consensus on the meaning of practice and scholarship, meaningful partnerships with the community, and mentoring to develop focused and realistic goals for scholarship. College wide themes that guide research efforts reflect the commitment to community health through a focus on the health of vulnerable populations and health outcomes. Mentoring is formal with faculty members given intensive workload time for scholarly efforts; and informal as faculty members with common interests come together.
Scholarly outcomes achieved in the Faculty Practice Network include 20 peer-reviewed or invited publications and many presentations in a five year period; three federal grants which link community needs, teaching, practice and research; and delivery of health programs and services to communities in northeast Tennessee including an average of 37,000 patient visits each year in nurse managed sites. Lessons learned that will facilitate the linkage between practice and scholarship include the significance of organizational structure on the ability to achieve goals, the need for faculty and administrative support for the venture, and the need to create partnerships between researchers, practitioners and communities to accomplish mutual goals.
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