Partnership to improve quality care for veterans: the VA Nursing Academy

More than 22 million living veterans reside in the United States. In fact, understanding military culture and the experiences of these veterans is important to their ongoing health care and the unique challenges faced by many. The Veterans Affairs (VA) Nursing Academy began in 2007 to fund pilot partnerships between schools of nursing and local VA health care facilities to better serve our veteran population. Fifteen academic/service partnerships were selected for funding between 2007 and 2009 with the goals of expanding faculty and professional development, increasing nursing student enrollment, providing opportunities for educational and practice innovations, and increasing the recruitment and retention of VA nurses. This article details critical components of the partnership developed between the Birmingham VA Medical Center and the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Nursing, a VA Nursing Academy partnership funded in the 2009 cohort. Site-specific goals of the partnership are described along with a discussion of the framework used to develop the Birmingham VA Nursing Academy, which includes relationship building, engagement, governance, evaluation of outcomes, and sustainability. The logic model developed for the partnership is included, and the interim outputs and outcomes of this practice-academic partnership are detailed, a number of which can be replicated by VAs and schools of nursing across the country.