Leveraging Nursing Leadership to Promote Learning Academic Health Care Systems

Abstract

In nursing, widespread misuse of the term “practice-ready graduates” has come under scrutiny. The term and its popular usage tend to assume that “practice readiness” is one static moment that can be achieved almost entirely in the academic context and occur simultaneously for all individuals upon graduation, despite the vast breadth of specializations graduates may enter. Education and practice partners are increasingly advocating for a shift to career-long learning and clinician support models instead. The Learning Health System framework, first iterated at a 2007 National Academy of Medicine (NAM) roundtable (then known as the Institute of Medicine), offers the ideal framework within which to develop and test such models. This discussion paper explores how a strategically integrated academic health center (AHC), operating within the Learning Health System framework, can draw upon its existing collective of knowledge, people power, and resources to support clinicians and solve persistent workforce challenges. Three such challenges include the need for (1) academicpractice integration, (2) sustainable clinician workforce pipelines, and (3) strategies to keep pace with developments in technology, artificial intelligence (AI), and data science. These challenge areas directly align with three NAM 2026 issues of focus: health care effectiveness, health workforce, and AI and emerging technologies, respectively. This discussion paper offers strategies and use cases that not only address the three challenge areas, but also stand to advance the NAM's overall vision of a learning health system via the integrated leadership of academic and clinical nurses across AHCs.