School of Nursing receives $1.3 million award from American Nurses Foundation

A University of Minnesota School of Nursing-led effort to create cutting-edge, immersive virtual reality simulation (IVRS) learning coordinated with a structured clinical preceptorship to provide real world experiences for nursing students was awarded $1.3 million from the American Nurses Foundation Reimagining Nursing Initiative.

In partnership with the University of Michigan School of Nursing, Purdue University School of Nursing and two other schools, the Big 10 Practice-Ready Nursing Initiative will use IVRS for learning and assessment in tandem with precepted clinical experiences and theory-based debriefing to teach quality care for multiple and diverse patients with complex needs.

The three-year pilot led by Assistant Professor Cynthia Bradley, PhD, RN,CNE, CHSE, was one of 10 bold ideas, from more than 350 nurse-led projects under consideration, selected by the American Nurses Foundation. The 10 bold ideas lean into nurses’ knowledge and expertise to develop solutions that allow them to work more effectively in various care settings.

“Clinical instruction throughout the pandemic has faced increasingly harsh realities,” says Bradley, director of simulation at the School of Nursing. “Practicing nurses are vital to helping students learn to provide care in complex care systems, but they are facing their own challenges of understaffing and compassion fatigue. Without radical change in clinical education, the revolving door of new nurses entering and quickly leaving the profession will continue. It’s past time to reimagine how we prepare nurses to meet the needs of the future.”  

“The Reimagining Nursing Initiative provides the solid investments nurses need to transform the education, regulation and practice of nursing,” says American Nurses Foundation Executive Director Kate Judge. “Nurses are a natural catalytic force for accelerating the evolution of our health system because they have an unmatched perspective on prevention, wellness and delivery of health care services.”

The Reimagining Nursing Initiative, made possible through the support of the Kaiser Permanente National Community Benefit Fund at East Bay Community Foundation, AMN Healthcare, Omnicell, and the Salka Impact Fund, is awarding more than $14 million to projects impacting 20 states. The pilots aim to create a future where nurses – in hospitals, schools, clinics and communities – drive change, use their skills, and most importantly, are valued and compensated for the care they provide.