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What Practice Partners Need to Know About the AACN Essentials

Preparing practice-ready nurses to thrive across all healthcare settings is a top priority for academic nursing. Sweeping changes in healthcare delivery, including new models of care delivery, emerging technology, and health system restructuring call for a new approach to how nurses are educated and transitioned into the workforce. The transformational work can only be achieved through close collaboration among nurses in academia and practice

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What Development Officers Need to Know

This guide provides development officers actionable steps and talking points on why this change is occurring in nursing education and how it is different from before. In addition, this guide helps explain the process of transitioning to CBE, implementing the Essentials, and how to appeal to donors.

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What Prospective Nursing Students Need to Know About the AACN Essentials

To help introduce those considering a nursing career to the profession’s move to competency-based education (CBE), AACN has developed a new guide that provides a brief overview of the many benefits of CBE to preparing more practice-ready nurses, followed by ten questions frequently asked by students interested in pursuing a nursing degree. The guide was developed to assist admissions professionals in explaining how CBE differs from other models of nursing education and how students benefit from this approach.

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Guiding Principles on Competency-Based Education & Assessment

AACN developed this resource to guide faculty engaged with transitioning to competency-based curricula based on The Essentials: Core Competencies for Professional Nursing Education. The following key components of competency-based education (CBE) provide a foundation for implementing CBE: outcome competencies, sequenced progression, tailored learning experiences, competency-focused instruction, and programmatic assessment. A shared understanding of the components and approaches of CBE is needed for successful implementation while still allowing for flexible program design.

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