Clinical Nurse Leader track offers better patient care training

Fort Worth, TX

5/4/2009

By: Dominique Van Beest, TCU Schieffer School of Journalism

Five consecutive years of declining enrollments and multiple reports of poor patient care. That’s the situation nursing educators found themselves in 10 years ago. It was then that the American Association of Colleges of Nursing began talks of a program that would bring a different kind of nurse to the patients’ bedside. Today this is known as the Clinical Nurse Leader Program (CNL). Now, TCU has become the first school in the area to offer this masters degree program.

The CNL program at TCU is a graduate-level curriculum that educates future nurses how to better care for patients and how to thrive in the current health care environment. In practice, a CNL supervises the care of a distinct group of patients. They are also educated to evaluate patient outcomes, determine risks, and coordinate care.

A CNL would practice as an advanced generalist as opposed to the specialized focus of advanced practice nurses like clinical nurse specialists and nurse practitioners. In order to qualify as a CNL, the students must pass a national certification exam at the end of the program.

The vice president for nursing at Texas Health Resources, Joan Clark, contacted TCU’s Harris College of Nursing & Health Sciences in hopes of starting the program at TCU. 

Dr. Kathy Baldwin, professor and director of graduate studies in the Harris College of Nursing & Health Sciences, said, “After the dean talked to Ms. Clark, she brought it forward to the rest of us to take a look at and we pretty much decided that it was something we could not pass up doing.” The program officially begins this summer.

The CNL graduate program in the nursing school is a two-year program. The introduction of the CNL program is expected to double the size of the original program. The students will take several graduate courses that deal with issues such as leadership in clinical microsystems and financial concepts in health care.

Currently, more than 70 schools in 35 states have a CNL program. Support and recognition of the position of CNL is increasing nationwide as more and more health facilities are reporting positive outcomes thanks to CNL participation.


For prospective applicants:

There will be an orientation held at TCU in June for new applicants to the CNL program. Interested students can contact Dr. Kathy Baldwin or Sybil White in the Harris College. For more information on Harris College, visit www.harriscollege.tcu.edu. More information is available at the American Association of Colleges of Nursing web site (www.aacn.nche.edu/CNL).