Enacting a Vision for a Master's Entry Clinical Nurse Leader Program: Rethinking Nursing Education

• Educational innovation in nursing requires patience and persistence.
• A broad and diverse inclusion of key stakeholders is crucial.
• Start with what you want the graduate to look like, then work backwards.
• Up-level the prelicensure clinical courses, emphasizing analysis and synthesis.

The need to educate nurses at the graduate level and provide them with a different skill set that broadens their view of health and nursing is clearly articulated by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. Consequently, the role of the clinical nurse leader (CNL) was born. Responding to the need for providing a highly educated and credentialed professional at the bedside, Rush University College of Nursing made the bold move to phase out baccalaureate education and enact a prelicensure, master's entry CNL program. Although there is a clear need for this type of graduate, there is little in the literature to provide guidance to institutions that wish to develop this type of program. This paper describes the factors that came into play in making that decision, the process of curriculum development and implementation, the challenges encountered in implementing this type of program, and the outcomes that the program has evidenced since its inception.