The National Council of State Boards of Nursing's Transition to Practice study: implications for educators.

The long-awaited results of phase I (RNs in hospitals) of the National Council of State Boards of Nursing’s (NCSBN) multisite, randomized, controlled Transition to Practice study have been released (Spector et al., 2015). This large, national study is the only transition-to-practice research that randomly assigned sites to a control group (they used their existing onboarding strategies) or to NCSBN’s evidencebased transition to practice (TTP) program. The study investigated whether a transition-to-practice program for new graduates made a difference in several outcomes related to quality and safety. We [Query #1: Please clarify “we” here and on the top left of page 2.] collected detailed information on the control sites’ programs so that they eventually were divided into three groups: NCSBN’s TTP program, those with an established program with institutional support (established program), and those with a very limited program (limited program) with little support. Then the outcomes were compared among the TTP and the established and limited programs. The results are promising for nursing, although other areas needed improvement. Many of the control group hospitals had excellent, “homegrown” programs (national programs such as the Versant or University HealthSystem Consortium/American Association of Colleges of Nursing residency programs were excluded from the study) that incorporate evidence-based components and support new graduates. However, some of the transition programs were sparse, with little or no support for the new graduate. We found that outcomes (competence, which was reported by the new graduate and preceptor; self-reports of errors, the use of safety practices, stress, and job satisfaction; and hospital data on retention) were significantly better when the transition program had the following characteristics: