Reshaping the Future: An Innovative Academic-Practice Collaboration for COVID-19 Vaccinations and Testing

The coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic posed unprecedented challenges for health care organizations, schools of nursing, and surrounding communities. Health care organizations encountered rapidly changing guidelines and shortages in the health care workforce and critical medical supplies. Schools of nursing were responding to abrupt suspensions of clinical placements, uncertainties about the transmission of the novel virus, and shortages of personal protective equipment. Despite these challenges, health care organizations and schools of nursing were laser-focused on the need to ensure a competent nursing workforce and timely pandemic response efforts. Thus, an innovative academic-practice collaboration between Yale New Haven Hospital and Quinnipiac University School of Nursing was developed to meet community vaccination and testing needs. The partnership was designed to provide undergraduate student nurses with valuable community health clinical hours during the spring 2021 semester while meeting the hospital's needs for supporting the COVID-19 vaccine clinics and testing sites. The positive outcomes of the collaboration and specific lessons learned are discussed.