Center for Clinical Excellence | University of Portland

Center for Clinical Excellence & Dedicated Education Units

Center for Clinical Excellence & Dedicated Education Units

The Center for Clinical Excellence

The Center for Clinical Excellence maintains and elevates the quality of clinical teaching and learning within the University of Portland School of Nursing & Health Innovations. By creating new clinical relationships as well as nurturing existing clinical relationships, the Center for Clinical Excellence supports all off-campus clinical learning activities. The Dedicated Education Unit (DEU) clinical teaching model is an integral component of the Center for Clinical Excellence, where we maintain 12 DEU partnerships with highly respected local clinical partners. We strive to integrate the DEU philosophy and best practices even into non-DEU clinical settings, as we recognize this as a best practice model for bridging the academic-practice gap.

The Center for Clinical Excellence provides support to the clinical nurses and health care team members who help teach our students, as well as providing support to the students themselves to meet not only the program outcomes and objectives, but to meet the evolving health care needs of our communities.

Our work includes:

  • Clinical partnership establishment, development & support across curriculum
  • DEU consultation and development
  • Placement and management of student's off-campus clinical experiences
  • Clinical faculty recruitment and training across curriculum
  • Clinical faculty and clinical site evaluations across curriculum

If you are interested in being a clinical faculty member, please complete the form in the link below.

Clinical Faculty Interest Form

 

If you are interested in having nursing students at your organization, or have other questions, comments or concerns, please email the Center for Clinical Excellence at clinical@up.edu

About Dedicated Education Units

A Dedicated Education Unit (DEU) is a clinical setting that is developed into an optimal teaching/learning environment through the collaborative efforts of nurses, health care team members, management, and faculty (Moscato et al., 2007). It is designed to provide students with a positive clinical learning environment that maximizes the achievement of student learning outcomes by using proven teaching/learning strategies and by capitalizing on the expertise of both clinicians and faculty. Students are integrated into the workplace in a way that allows them to be an integral part of the workflow and culture, so they experience a realistic picture of nursing practice. At the same time, the DEU provides an opportunity for clinicians to stay fresh and motivated in their roles as mentors and role models and a way for faculty to remain grounded in current clinical reality.

Currently, the University of Portland School of Nursing & Health Innovations collaborates with its clinical partners to operate DEUs with community health, acute care, post-acute care, school-based nursing, ambulatory care, and mental health settings.

Our clinical partners include:

The Dedicated Education Unit (DEU) clinical education model was first implemented at University of Portland School of Nursing & Health Innovations with clinical partners as an innovative method to increase student enrollment, better use existing resources, support professional development of nurses, and increase nurse satisfaction. The collaboration was in response to the impending nursing shortage driven in part by a shortage of nursing faculty needed to educate the nation’s next generation of nurses (Moscato et al., 2007).

With Providence Portland Medical Center, Providence St. Vincent Medical Center, and the Veterans Affairs Portland Health Care System, University of Portland School of Nursing & Health Innovations opened its first DEU in 2003. A partnership of nurse executives, staff nurses, and faculty transformed patient care units into environments of support for nursing students and staff nurses while continuing the critical work of providing quality care to acutely ill adults.

Evaluation results indicate that the benefits of the DEU model go beyond increasing teaching capacity. Administrators, faculty, and clinical partners—even those who work in the traditional model—believe that the DEU produces stronger, more confident nurses (Nishioka et al., 2014).

DEU consultation services are available. We host onsite visits or telephone/video conferences, which include DEU materials, visit preparation, site and lab coordination, expert consulting, and connection with multiple sites and stakeholders at one time.

To schedule a visit or teleconference, contact us today at clinical@up.edu!

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