Academic-Practice Partnership to Support the Health Plan Nursing Role

This poster will describe a unique academic-practice partnership between a school of nursing and a health insurance plan. Leaders from both settings have been collaborating over the past two years to integrate ambulatory care nursing competencies into both the undergraduate and graduate curriculum in alignment with the new Future of Nursing 2020-2030 report and the revised AACN Essentials of Professional Nursing Education (2021). An additional objective of the partnership was to meet the nursing workforce needs of the health plan. The recent availability of the AAACN Best Practice Guidelines for Academic and Practice Partnerships in Ambulatory Care and Community Settings (2022) helped to clarify a shared vision for the future of the joint effort.
Health insurance plans offer their beneficiaries support in accessing care and provide nursing care coordination across the continuum to achieve the best individual and population health outcomes. Recruitment of nurses into these practice settings has been difficult due to lack of recognition of the role. Erroneously, insurance plans are often thought of predominantly as payers/restrictors of services/access. In reality, health plan nurses, in the role of care manager, can have a major impact on identifying at-risk members to effect tangible improvements in care and outcomes.
Historically, academic programs provide minimal content and experiences related to ambulatory care nursing. An elective in the undergraduate program focuses on competencies of the ambulatory care nurse and now features health plan nursing as an option for clinical practice. At the graduate level, a student DNP project has focused on building infrastructure to promote a culture of evidence-based practice utilizing the advancing research and clinical practice through close collaboration (ARCC) model by creating a champion role for nurse care managers. Subsequently, the health plan developed a comprehensive new-hire orientation and preceptorship program for new graduates to ensure acquisition of specialized knowledge and acculturation to the nurse care manager role to promote retention and job satisfaction.