Practice-Ready Nurse Graduates

Nursing education programs focus on imparting knowledge, not demonstrating the competencies nurses need. As a result, new graduates face a mismatch between what they learned in school and what the real world requires. Nursing school curricula rarely integrate the social determinants of health and nurses’ role in advancing health equity.

Clinical placements often do not allow students to learn how to perform difficult but common procedures or care for multiple patients with diverse needs. Given current nurse staffing levels, the optimal preceptor model of pairing one nursing student with one practicing nurse is a practical impossibility.

Nearly one in five new nurses leave their first job within a year. The average cost of replacing a single nurse was $40,000 in 2021 and has only gone up since.

Practice-Ready Nurse Graduates pilots are helping ensure newly graduated nurses can immediately contribute to and succeed in a variety of settings where patients need care. These pilots are promoting contemporary teaching methods and supporting innovations in competency validation, clinical preceptorship, and the integration of technology to aid competency development. Graduates who are ready to work across settings and tackle the needs of today – and tomorrow - are already entering the workforce!