Grand Valley State University’s Kirkhof College of Nursing (KCON) has partnered with Elsevier Inc. to collaborate on quality improvement in healthcare and establish a research studies program.

An international company focusing on scientific, technical and medical information solutions and products, Elsevier will embed its clinical practice model (CPM) framework in KCON. The practice model, which will expand on research opportunities for nursing students and faculty at GVSU, will be managed by the Bonnie Wesorick Center for Healthcare Transformation in KCON.

“I think that it is really cool and I think that it will be more clinically-based and more realistic, said Hannah Burt, a nursing student at GVSU. “(It) provides another way of learning in the classroom.”

Evelyn Clingerman, executive director of the Wesorick Center, said that the center at KCON was created to carry on the legacy work of Bonnie Wesorick, the nurse entrepreneur behind the design of Elsevier’s CPM framework.

The collaboration between Elsevier and KCON, she said, would directly link the college’s mission to transform the understanding and studying of healthcare practices.

“The Elsevier and Wesorick Center partnership offers students multiple learning opportunities to participate in research that is meaningful in healthcare and to make research come alive as they apply what they learn in our classrooms,” Clingerman said. “Students and faculty will team up with members of Elsevier’s leadership team who are implementing the CPM framework.”

The CPM framework guides sustainable healthcare transformation by supporting core beliefs, principles and theories that have been combined into compact models that will help clinicians and nurse practitioners to establish change within various healthcare practices.

Utilizing the change and models will lead to positive results for patients, caregivers and the entire healthcare community.

Most of the KCON health care disciplines, which include nursing, are practice-based disciplines and many certification agencies require colleges to document how they are maximizing students’ experiential learning, Clingerman said.

Valuing hands-on clinical experiences, the executive director of the Wesorick Center said that one attribute that KCON values highly is to offer high impact learning experiences in thinking and applying that type of learning in contemporary clinical settings with complex health care problems. Ultimately, she said, the partnership provides a link between practice and academia in health care and gives students and faculty the chance to further advance their skills.

Clingerman said that by participating in these projects GVSU students will be exposed to cutting-edge inquiry that will solve issues within health care systems to transform and revolutionize health care.

“Our graduates will be prepared to lead change using evidence in contemporary practice settings,” she said. “Elsevier is a business partner who leads transformation in clinical practice settings and this is a win-win for both Elsevier and GVSU’s Wesorick Center as our students and faculty will come together with Elsevier’s international practice partners.”

For more information about Elsevier, visit www.elsevier.com.