The clinical home community: a model for community-based education

Escalating health care costs, racial inequities and socioeconomic disparities have limited access for many to even the barest of health care services. The paradigm shift to a health promotion, disease prevention, and health restoration model within a community-based framework demands greater integrated learning experiences for nursing students that are centred where clients live, work, and play.

To describe the process of developing, implementing and evaluating a rural New England University's experience of piloting a clinical home community model within its existing baccalaureate curriculum.

The model describes how it is possible to break free from traditional acute care settings in hospitals and mental health institutions. Students are provided with maternal-child and adult mental health experiences that are available in a targeted clinical home community setting where consumers are increasingly seeking health care. The concepts that directed curriculum revision from a traditional to a community-based educational framework are discussed.

Strengths and limitations of the model are presented within the context of student, faculty and consumer partnerships. Implications for global development of the clinical home community model in nursing are proposed.