Enhancing Infection Control and Student Learning: A Collaborative Strategy Using Nursing Students During COVID-19

Coronavirus disease 2019 resulted in restrictions in didactic and clinical rotations while sites denied entry or limited numbers of nursing student placements to decrease impact staff nurse workload. Pandemic incidences of hospital-acquired infections, central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs), and catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) increased, underscoring the importance of increasing workforce-ready nurses.

To increase the number of nursing students permitted into the hospital, hospital and school administrators devised the nurse assist program (NAP), which is a collaborative approach developed to address increased staff workloads and personnel shortages and facilitate student return to clinical settings. Student nurses supported infection-control practices and addressed hospital-acquired infection bundle compliance issues in real-time to reduce patient harm.

When nursing schools struggled to access clinical sites, area hospitals sought to implement the NAP and requested students for placement.

Following NAP implementation, CAUTI and CLABSI were shown to decrease. [.