The Duke-NICHE program: an academic-practice collaboration to enhance geriatric nursing care

The Duke-Nurses Improving Care of Healthsystem Elders (NICHE) is an example of an academic-practice partnership between a university-based school of nursing and a health system that aims to improve care of older adults by simultaneously enhancing the expertise of frontline nursing staff, accelerating the implementation of evidence-based care approaches, and generating scientific knowledge at the point of care. This article describes the processes used to develop the partnership, and reports initial outcomes and lessons learned. Although challenging to develop and sustain, academic-health system partnerships hold potential to improve care through both improved implementation of evidence and stimulating new research at the point of care.