Great Expectations

Our students expect a lot from Columbia Nursing. They come to us to acquire the skills, knowledge, and wisdom for achieving their dream of making a difference in the world by becoming nurses. Not only do we share that expectation, we wouldn’t have it any other way.

As nurse educators and stewards of the profession, helping to fulfill our students’ aspirations means providing a meaningful learning experience that will serve them and their patients tomorrow as well as today. But we need to do more. We need to empower them to function effectively within a health care system that is placing a growing emphasis on non-acute care settings and managing patients with complex chronic conditions. We also have to incorporate into their education such trends as population-based health, the use of data and technology in clinical decision-making, and delivering care to patients and families from varied socio-economic and cultural backgrounds.  And we must do so while remaining true to the enduring values and principles of nursing’s long-held tradition of delivering safe and effective care for our patients.

For these reasons we have recently concluded an evaluation of our curriculum. Our goal is straightforward: to ensure that a nursing degree from Columbia is as valuable and desirable to our current and prospective students as it has been for our graduates throughout our long history.

As a result of our evaluation, we will be introducing a number of changes to our curriculum. We’re confident that these improvements will build on the strong Columbia legacy while adding flexibility and the capacity to both anticipate and respond to the continually changing dynamics of the health care landscape.

Let me offer an example. The recent Affordable Care Act has placed an appropriate emphasis on patient safety and reducing hospital readmission rates. In response, our new curriculum will emphasize safe transitions of care, such as from hospital to skilled nursing facility or from hospital to home. Our students will be taught advanced skills in assessing patients’ needs, developing and carrying out plans of care across care environments, and how to evaluate these plans. We will also have a greater emphasis on medication reconciliation, better provider-to-provider communication, and incorporation of the latest community- and hospital-based care initiatives that are having a real effect on making transitions of care safer.

We are proud that our curriculum has long emphasized understanding the appropriate provision of nursing care to patients with diverse values, beliefs and behaviors. We plan to add new content to our courses for strengthening the delivery of care to meet patients' social, cultural and linguistic needs. For example, a series of lectures by experts in the field will illuminate how patients’ religious and spiritual beliefs can influence their relationship to health care delivery and providers.

Evidence-based practice has been a hallmark of a Columbia Nursing education, but an exponential increase in clinical research has created new expectations for ensuring that our students can integrate validated findings into their nursing practice quickly and effectively. We will have a new course customized for this purpose, as well as provide richer detail to students regarding developing answerable clinical questions, developing search strategies to find the best evidence and incorporating this evidence in their practice.

These changes to our curriculum will provide our students with an even stronger foundation for building successful, rewarding, and meaningful careers in nursing. They are part of a broader campaign to ensure that our educational offerings keep pace with and, whenever possible, help shape the practice of nursing and the operations of our health care system in general. With this increase in content, we have chosen to accept students with non-nurse baccalaureate degrees into an MS rather than BS degree program to be completed in 15 months.  Entry into a master’s education will entitle students to be eligible for more federal student loans. Students may then choose to continue their education for a research doctorate (PhD) or the clinical doctorate (DNP).

These changes have been carefully developed by members of our faculty to ensure that our students continue to receive the finest and most comprehensive nursing education possible. As Columbia nurses, they will possess the self-assurance and knowledge to confidently launch their careers, using their education as a springboard for reaching their full potential as nurse leaders, clinicians, or researchers. No matter where they choose to make their contribution – in health delivery, health research, or as patient advocates — they will surely be leaving their mark as Columbia nurses.