Strengthening the partnership of education and practice through Quad Council competencies

Background: The New York Public Health Nursing Summit is a workgroup of educators and public health leaders formed through the auspices of The New York New Jersey Public Health Training Center. The goal of the workgroup is to create a strong partnership between public health leadership and academia to support provision of a skilled public health nursing workforce. The summit workgroup identified a critical need for public health nurse generalists (PHN's) who are educated in competency-based, population based practice. It was discovered that although the Quad Council of Public Health Nursing Organizations (Quad Council) designed a set of core competencies specific to PHN generalists, little is known about how the competencies are viewed from the public health practice setting (Quad Council, 2003; New York Public Health Nursing Summit, June 2005). The interactive partnership between public health nursing education and practice sheds light on the daily use of the Quad Council competencies.

Study Purpose: The workgroup designed a study whose purpose was to identify how well prepared BSN nurse hires in public health nursing practice setting are relative to the Quad Council competencies, the importance of the competencies, and recommendations to nurse educators about preparation of their graduates.

Study Design: The descriptive study utilized an internet survey examining the qualifications and preparation for the practice of Public Health Nursing. The survey audience was public health nurse supervisors in local health departments in New York State.

Results: Preliminary data indicate that there are essential skills for Public Health Nursing practice, identified skill areas in which BSN graduates are not well prepared, and skills which can be learned on the job. Recommendations from the practice setting to academia were collected and will be discussed to strengthen the partnership process.