Statewide collaborative curriculum project: a shared vision

In 2011, national accreditation was mandated for all nursing programs within the state of Minnesota. Only three of the 23 practical nursing (PN) programs were nationally accredited at the time. The majority of the PN programs needed major curricular revisions to meet national accreditation standards. Many of the PN programs were rural, with limited resources, faculty, or expertise. A collaborative process between industry and nursing programs was established to develop a curriculum framework that met national accreditation standards and could be used as a foundation by the PN programs for curriculum development and revision. The results of the collaborative process included a curriculum framework that was guided by eight student learning outcomes and included an online resource of course outlines, assignments, rubrics, and clinical evaluation tools. The process described in this article can be replicated to guide other programs in development of a curriculum framework to ease the burden of individual nursing programs.