Nurse Education, Practice, Quality and Retention - Transition to Practice Program - The?Indiana Rural Nursing Workforce Pathway and Clinical Residency Network (IRN?Network)?is an innovative, statewide academic-practice partnership designed to increase the supply of practice-ready registered nurses prepared to serve rural and medically vulnerable communities across Indiana. Built upon the complementary strengths of the Indiana University School of Nursing Bloomington and Fort Wayne campuses, the IRN Network integrates healthcare worker-to-nursing pathways, competency-based education, immersive community-based clinical learning, simulation-enhanced experiential education, and structured transition-to-practice support into a comprehensive workforce development model. Together, the two campuses bring nationally recognized?expertise?in nursing education, rural health, simulation, workforce development, implementation science, community-engaged scholarship, and academic-practice partnerships that uniquely position Indiana University to address the state's growing nursing workforce shortages.?The project will meet the four program objectives by 1) establishing?structured healthcare worker-to-registered nurse pathways that recruit, support, and?retain?individuals with prior healthcare experience as they progress through undergraduate nursing education and into rural nursing practice; 2) implementing the?Rural Community Health Clinical Residency – Transition-to-Practice Model (RCHCR-TPM), a longitudinal educational pathway that provides undergraduate nursing students with a minimum of?100 additional community-based clinical hours?beyond the traditional nursing curriculum while integrating structured mentoring, competency-based assessment, and transition-to-practice coaching; 3) strengthening faculty and clinical preceptor capacity through statewide professional development in competency-based education, mentoring, rural health practice, simulation pedagogy, and transition-to-practice support; 4) expanding experiential learning through high-fidelity simulation, telehealth technologies, artificial intelligence-supported virtual patients, and immersive virtual and mixed-reality learning experiences that complement direct patient care and prepare students for the complexity of rural healthcare delivery; and 5) providing comprehensive mentoring, academic support, and transition-to-practice programming that improves student success, workforce readiness, and graduate retention. Collectively, these integrated strategies address the NEPQR-TPP priorities by creating and strengthening nursing career pathways, providing direct support to nursing students, implementing competency-based curricula, expanding academic-practice partnerships, addressing clinical skills gaps through simulation-enhanced experiential learning, and strengthening faculty and preceptor capacity to support successful transition into professional nursing practice. The IRN Network will integrate workforce pathways, competency-based education, academic-practice partnerships, immersive community-based clinical education, simulation-enhanced experiential learning, and structured transition-to-practice support, which will prepare graduates who are ready to enter practice with the competencies, confidence, and resilience needed to provide high-quality care in rural and medically underserved communities. Beyond increasing the supply of registered nurses, the project will?establish?an evidence-based, scalable workforce development model that strengthens healthcare access throughout Indiana medically underserved and health professions shortage areas while providing a replicable framework for other schools of nursing and healthcare systems confronting similar workforce challenges.
