Embedded, engaged, evolving: a consortium of nurse researchers and clinicians

This article describes the journey of an innovative partnership among nurse researchers and nurse clinicians. The Chronic Illness Consortium (CIC) is an academic-service partnership between a university and its neighbors in a region without an academic medical center. It began with a small group of nurse researchers seeking a strategy to maximize research output and knowledge development and has evolved over 6 years into a forum that bridges scholars and clinicians, specialists and generalists, current and former students. The CIC engages in the scholarship of discovery, integration, application, and teaching,(1) and seeks to radically reform the way nursing and health care in general is delivered to people living with chronic illness. Finally, it is evolving as both knowledge development and practice address the demands of an increasingly large and complex patient population. As with any journey, many opportunities and lessons were learned. More importantly, there are implications for nursing knowledge development and application. Each of these areas is addressed.