A New Framework for Practice-Academic Partnerships During the Pandemic-and into the Future

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many health care facilities closed their doors to nursing students, depriving them of the experience of caring for patients, a foundation of nursing education. The purpose of this article is to report on how the National Council of State Boards of Nursing convened nurse leaders from around the country to explore this problem and develop possible solutions.Coming together virtually, these leaders recommended a national model, the practice-academic partnership, to provide nursing students with in-person clinical experiences during the pandemic. This model is unique in its recognition of the important role of nursing regulatory bodies in these partnerships. The practice-academic partnership model creates clinical education opportunities for students during a public health crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, the model could be applied to meet the chronic challenges nursing education programs have often faced in securing clinical sites, even in the absence of a global or national public health emergency. We provide the context in which the practice-academic partnership model was developed, along with keys to its successful implementation and suggestions for its evaluation. We also discuss the implications of using this model once the pandemic ends.