The AACN-AONL Academic–Practice Partnership Playbook: From Shared Vision to Action
Webinar Details
Join us for a powerful follow-up to the April 2025 AACN/AONL webinar, where the national Academic-Practice Partnership Playbook—developed by the joint advisory committee—will be presented for the first time. This session will showcase the Playbook’s (available later this fall), highlight early implementation successes, and preview the committee’s exciting next steps. The committee co-chairs will share insider perspectives from the five collaborative writing groups that shaped the Playbook and provide practical strategies for bringing its exemplars to life across academic and practice settings.
They will also outline the committee’s plans for a comprehensive dissemination strategy and impact measurement framework—ensuring the Playbook drives meaningful and lasting change. Don’t miss this opportunity to engage with leaders from across nursing academia and practice and leave with actionable tools to integrate the Playbook into your workflows, strengthen partnerships, and advance health for all communities.
Outcomes:
- Provide an update on the development and refinement of the national Academic-Practice Partnership Playbook introduced by the AACN/AONL Academic-Practice Advisory Committee webinar from April 2025, entitled Navigating the Future Together: The Role of Academic-Practice Partnerships.
- Discuss practice strategies for participants to embed academic-practice principles and the Playbook into organizational workflows to build enduring partnerships that benefit communities across the country.
- Describe the next steps for evaluating the Playbook’s impact, including potential evaluation metrics and exemplars of implementation strategies used organizations in diverse settings.
Note: Recording of the webinar will be available soon after the webinar airs. Visit AACN's On-Demand Webinars to watch.
Speakers
Susan M. Grant, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN
Chief Clinical Officer
Symplr
Dr. Susan Grant is the chief clinical officer for Symplr, a leading provider of enterprise health care operations software. Prior to joining Symplr in February 2025, she served as executive vice president, chief experience officer and chief nurse executive at Wellstar Health System and has served as a chief nurse for five different U.S. health systems including The Dana Farber Cancer Institute, University of Washington Medical Center, Emory Healthcare and Beaumont Health. Her experience as a nurse executive has led to achievements including leading the nursing practice of over 10,000 nurses across all care settings and successful Magnet designation and redesignation of nine different hospitals. She has led through public health crises, including Ebola and COVID-19.
Dr. Grant currently serves on the Daisy Foundation Board of Directors, co-chair of the AACN/AONL Task Force on Academic Practice Partnerships, Vanderbilt University’s Dean’s Advisory Board, the JONA editorial board, and is immediate past chair of the Wellstar Medical College of Georgia Health board. Dr. Grant, a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing since 2010, is currently on the Academy’s Board of Directors and serves on the Academy’s Models of Care Task Force. She recently spearheaded the Academy’s Policy Dialogue on nursing’s role in virtual models of care. Dr. Grant is a Robert Wood Johnson Executive Nurse Fellow, Johnson & Johnson Wharton Nurse Executive Fellow and Nurse Executive in Residence at Georgetown University. She received a bachelor’s degree in nursing from the Medical College of Georgia, master’s degree in nursing from the University of South Carolina, and Doctor of Nursing Practice from Vanderbilt University.
Angela Clark, PhD, RN, CNE, FAAN
Maxine Clark and Bob Fox President, Barnes-Jewish College Goldfarb School of Nursing, BJC HealthCare
Dr. Angela Clark is the Maxine Clark and Bob Fox President at Barnes-Jewish College Goldfarb School of Nursing and a Voluntary Research Professor of Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis. A nationally recognized nursing leader, she currently serves as co-chair of the AACN/AONL Academic-Practice Advisory, where she is committed to redefining how nursing education and health care institutions collaborate.
At Goldfarb, Dr. Clark is leading one of the most robust examples of this work through the BJC Full Ride Scholars Program. Since launching in May 2022, the program has become the largest of its kind in the nation, with 354 scholars to date—including a record 85 in the fall of 2025—and creating direct workforce pathways aligned with BJC HealthCare’s RN Career Ladder. Under her leadership, Goldfarb has experienced enrollment growth despite a highly competitive market, including a 43% increase in new students and a 73% increase in graduate program enrollment in 2025. Her leadership emphasizes reflexive academic-practice partnerships—dynamic collaborations that evolve in real time to meet the needs of students, employers, and communities.
Nationally, Dr. Clark has been recognized as a Coldiron Fellow, an Apple Distinguished Educator, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing. She was named a 2025 “Rising Star” in Modern Healthcare’s Women Leaders recognition program and is an American Council on Education (ACE) Fellow. Passionate about advancing health equity and stabilizing the nursing workforce, Dr. Clark continues to champion innovative solutions that expand access to nursing education and strengthen the profession for generations to come.
Elizabeth G. NeSmith, PhD, RN
Dean and Professor
Augusta University
Dr. Elizabeth NeSmith is Chair of the Department of Physiological and Technological Nursing and Associate Professor in the College of Nursing with adjunct status in the AU Graduate School. Dr. NeSmith has more than 30 years of experience in trauma, emergency, and disaster nursing, with nursing leadership roles in these areas at the local, regional, and national levels.
Having obtained her Doctor of Philosophy degree with a focus on translational and interdisciplinary research, Dr. NeSmith’s federally funded grants have focused on the effects of lifetime chronic stress on the inflammatory response and how it impacts healing and vulnerability to complications following acute life-threatening injury. Dr. NeSmith’s research will lead to advances in tailoring individual treatments to prevent and improve acute outcomes of trauma. Dr. NeSmith is also very active at the state and national levels as an advocate for nursing research and faculty development. She was recently awarded more than $399K from the University System of Georgia to launch a research-based, interdisciplinary nursing faculty expansion program. In collaboration with her research team, Dr. NeSmith has multiple trauma-related publications and nationally presented abstracts and co-founded the Trauma Interdisciplinary Group for Research (TIGR). Together with her TIGR co-founder, Dr. Regina Medeiros, Dr. NeSmith developed and authored publications and national presentations which focus on the implementation of their PhD/DNP Operational Collaborative (P-DOC) Model of clinical and research collaboration among doctorally-prepared nurses.
Mark Schreiber, MBA, RN
Vice President, Chief Nursing Officer
Wellstar MCG Health System
Mr. Mark Schreiber is the Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer of Wellstar MCG Health. Mark is responsible for strategic leadership and operational guidance for all aspects of nursing across the Medical Center and Health System, focusing on efficient and cost-effective operations, service excellence, patient safety and quality initiatives in partnership with the Vice President and Chief Medical Officer.
Mark is a nursing executive with more than 36 years’ experience in health care. He has worked as a transporter, patient care tech, registered nurse in the Emergency Department, and his role progressed to charge nurse, nurse manager, and Director of ED Clinical Operations. In 2016, Mark was promoted to Director of Emergency and Critical Care Services, which encompassed multiple ICUs and an Intermediate Care area. In 2021, Mark led the development and implementation of MCG Health’s AirCare Helicopter Transport Program and MCG Health’s first-ever Adult Critical Care Transport Team. In November 2022, Mark assumed responsibilities for the Histocompatibility/Immunology Lab, Pathology Services, Radiology, Rehabilitation Services and Respiratory Therapy. In September of 2023, with the alignment with Wellstar Health System, Mark became the VP and Chief Nursing Officer for Wellstar MCG Health, where he continues to serve in that role.
Mark earned a BS degree in biology from Augusta College, a BSN from the Medical College of Georgia and an MBA in healthcare management from Western Governors University. Mark is certified as a Nurse Executive through the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC). In 2014, Mark was recognized as the CSRA Nurse Manager of the Year. In 2018, he was awarded the Patient and Family Centered Care Partnership Award and in 2022 he was awarded the Pat Sodomka Leadership Award. Mark, a Hodgkin’s Lymphoma survivor, has recently discovered a passion for fundraising for cancer research. For 2024, Mark was named the regional Visionary of the Year for LLS when his team raised the highest amount during the fundraising campaign. Mark now serves on the local LLS leadership team.
Pricing and CE Credit
This webinar is free to deans, faculty, staff and students from AACN member schools of nursing. All non-member audiences will be required to pay a $59 webinar fee.
Continuing Nursing Education
One nursing continuing professional development (NCPD) credit is associated with this webinar; attendees must be present for the entire webinar and complete the evaluation to receive a certificate of completion.
The American Association of Colleges of Nursing is accredited as a provider of nursing continuing professional development by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.