www.journalofnursingregulation.com 23 Volume 1/Issue 3 October 2010 N ursing care at the bedside and in the community has changed significantly over the past 30 years. Patient acuity and complexity require high-level critical- thinking skills, and advances in information systems and point- of-care technology create environments that require strong in- formatics skills. Furthermore, the increase in nursing care for patients in community and home-based settings requires astute autonomy, prioritization, and initiative skills. Although nurs- ing care has dramatically changed, clinical nursing education models have not. In January 2010, a 2-year effort to find solutions to the challenges facing the nursing profession led to Transformational Models of Nursing Across Different Settings, a set of commissioned briefs written by the Fellows of the Robert Wood Johnson Foun- dation (RWJF) Executive Nurse Leadership program. This full report, which was forwarded to the RWJF Initiative on the Fu- ture of Nursing at the Institute of Medicine (IOM) for publica- tion, notes that the current nursing education model is not ad- equate to meet the needs of the future (Niederhauser, MacIntyre, Garner, Teel, & Murray, in press; Smith Glasgow, Dunphy, & Mainous, in press). The authors of this article are RWJF Fellows of the Executive Nurse Leadership program and participated in this effort. The purpose of this article is to describe some of the major issues raised and new approaches discussed in these briefs, including the following: ⦁ Achieving standardization and collaboration while transform- ing nursing education ⦁ Academic-practice partnerships that foster innovation in edu- cational models ⦁ New educational technologies, such as simulation and mobile information technology, at the point of care ⦁ New approaches to the transition of undergraduate and gradu- ate nursing students into practice ⦁ Changes from mandatory clinical hours to competency-based assessments Regulation and Collaboration Today, regulatory standards for nursing education programs vary from one jurisdiction to another on several issues. Differences include the number of hours required for theory and clinical courses and the ratios of students to faculty members. Some states regulate the ratio of full-time faculty to part-time faculty; others do not. Also, certain jurisdictions require board of nurs- ing (BON) approval of all clinical education facilities; others do not. As educational institutions extend their boundaries beyond state lines and into cyberspace, reevaluation of such regulation needs to occur. A delicate balance needs to be achieved between standardization and innovation in nursing education. To transform clinical nursing education, we need a collab- orative effort of all constituents, including nurse leaders, nursing faculty, and regulatory entities. Benner, Sutphen, Leonard, and Day (2010), in their landmark book, Educating Nurses, A Call for Radical Transformation, argue that change in nursing education at a structural level requires new approaches to policy and coordi- nation of efforts among practicing nurses, nurse administrators, preceptors, nursing educators, leaders of national organizations, regulatory bodies, state legislators, accreditors, and state BONs. Interdisciplinary Partnerships Nursing education curricula of the future need to address safety, quality, and the creation of effective interdisciplinary learning teams. Many recent reports have documented the pressing need to improve communication and collaboration among health providers and implement systems to improve health outcomes Supporting Innovation in Nursing Education Mary Ellen Smith Glasgow, PhD, RN, ACNS-BC; Victoria P. Niederhauser, DrPH, MSN, APRN, PNP-C; Lynne M. Dunphy, PhD, APRN, FNP-BC; and Rosalie O. Mainous, PhD, ARNP, NNP-BC Innovative approaches to clinical nursing education are clearly needed in this era of patient complexity, technology and in- formatics, limited student clinical placements, and demands for learning experiences outside of traditional acute-care settings. Business as usual in clinical nursing education is not an adequate response to the challenges that nursing educators face today. This article addresses two commissioned papers written on nursing education for Transformational Models of Nursing Across Different Settings, an effort by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Executive Nurse Fellows program to find solu- tions to the challenges facing the nursing profession.