Clinical liaison nurse model in a community hospital: a unique academic-practice partnership that strengthens clinical nursing education.

The necessity to help baccalaureate nursing students transition to clinical practice in a health care environment governed by change has compelled nurse educators to investigate alternative clinical instruction models that nurture academic-practice partnerships and facilitate student clinical learning. This article describes an academic-practice partnership in a community hospital using the Clinical Liaison Nurse (CLN) model as a link between students and clinical faculty and reports results of a quasi-experimental study that compared perceptions of the clinical learning environment between students participating in the CLN model (experimental group) and those in a traditional, instructor-led clinical model (control group). Students assigned to the CLN model had statistically significantly higher individualization, satisfaction, and task orientation scores on the Clinical Learning Environment Inventory. The findings provide evidence that academic-practice partnerships can be successful in community hospital settings and enhance students' perceptions in the clinical learning environment.