Description/Overview: In the fall of 2009, a state university’s college of nursing’s simulation laboratory personnel and a magnet hospital’s education department collaborated to develop a two-year research project on using simulation to enhance competency, confidence, and critical thinking in the new graduate nurse. The goal of the project was to assist new graduate nurses in their transition from student nurses to staff nurses by incorporating simulated clinical learning activities into their first six months of work experience. An additional program goal was to train the clinical nurse educators to become proficient and competent as simulation and debriefing facilitators. By using their combined expertise, the clinical nurse educators, and the simulated lab personnel developed a series of simulated learning experiences for the new graduate nurses. The scenarios selected for the program were based on incorporating critical thinking/clinical judgment behaviors into common clinical situations (cardiac, neuro, metabolic and respiratory care issues). All activities were followed by a debriefing session facilitated by members of the team from both organizations. Initially, the nurses were provided with medium fidelity simulation utilizing a computerized assisted instruction. Then they participated in both individual and group high fidelity simulation scenarios using a model of simple to complex learning over six months. The purpose of this symposium is to describe the overall collaborative program that includes discussion of the following topics: 1. Program description and activities 2. Research design and outcomes 3. Lessons learned and implications

Learner Objective #1: Discuss ways academia and hospital staff development programs can collaborate to share resources and knowledge to better prepare new nurses for practice

Learner Objective #2: Explain the types of research-based strategies used to help the new graduate practice clinical judgment