Approaches for establishing and sustaining clinical academic partnerships: A discursive review

To discuss the need for a formalised structure that bridges the clinical and academic realms with concrete recommendations for programme development.

In the rapidly changing landscape of health care, nurses are challenged with the responsibility to engage in evidence-based practice, quality improvement and research projects. Clinical and academic partnerships play a vital role in fostering collaboration, mentorship and resources.

Discursive paper.

Searching international literature published between 2010-2020 in PubMed, CINAHL and Google Scholar, we explored the benefits, barriers and facilitators of clinical academic partnerships from the available evidence and professional perspectives from both sides of a clinical/academic collaboration.

Evidence-based literature supports the establishment of partnerships schools of nursing and clinical institutions to improve patient outcomes and experiences and provide additional resources for improved research and practice capacity between both entities. Barriers to establishing clinical academic partnerships included lack of time, lack of formal collaborations and knowledge deficits. Facilitators included visible leadership endorsement, mentoring and modelling a culture of inquiry.

The establishment of formalised clinical academic partnerships can be used to develop continuing education programmes, promote engagement in nursing inquiry, fill in knowledge gaps in practice and improve available resources and patient outcomes. There is a great need for capacity building in hospitals, superficially, those with a mission to address the research-practice gap, promote nursing excellence and improve patient outcomes.

Nurse leaders play an instrumental role in establishing sustainable clinical academic partnerships that create shared resources, resulting in mutual benefit, and influences a much-needed shift in organisational culture and infrastructure.