Academic-Practice Partnerships: Driving and Supporting Educational Changes

The 3 recognized missions of academic nursing-education, practice, and research-are not new. Yet, the continued separation of nursing education and service, with a lack of integration between schools of nursing and clinical practice, continues to be discussed as contributing to academic programs that produce graduates unready for clinical practice, research that does not adequately support clinical care needs, and isolation of both the nurse faculty from the clinical enterprise and clinicians from the education and research missions. Recently, academic-practice partnerships have been reemphasized as a concept and mechanism for supporting changes in nursing education and improving clinical care. This article highlights some of the driving forces behind the focus on academic-practice partnerships and summarizes 3 changes in education.