Standards of holistic nursing practice as guidelines for quality undergraduate nursing curricula

The accreditation criteria of the Commission for Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE) direct faculty to select nationally developed standards for professional practice to guide curricula and to articulate curriculum outcomes. Recently, the CCNE proposed that all undergraduate programs should adopt the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) Essentials of Baccalaureate Education as one set of national standards for undergraduate and prelicensure programs. Standards of Holistic Nursing Practice, developed by the American Holistic Nurses' Association, is an additional set of standards that assists in defining quality for undergraduate nursing education. Standards of Holistic Nursing shares major concepts with Essentials; however, it accentuates the concepts of nurse self-care, articulated nursing theory as a foundation for practice, managing the care environment to promote healing, and care of the environment as essential to professional practice. These standards do not change the care being provided by professional nurses adhering to nursing theory and current evidence, but they do raise awareness and change emphasis of practice to reflect a holistic perspective. Used together, Standards and Essentials provide complementary guidelines for curricula-preparing professional nurses to care for client and self.