The need to attend to quality and safety competency development, increase capacity in nursing education programs, address the faculty and nursing shortages, and find new ways to keep step with an ever-changing health care environment has brought forth numerous creative curricular responses and collaborative efforts. To tackle these multiple needs and challenges simultaneously, a new academic-service partnership was created to collaboratively develop an innovative clinical education delivery model. The designed dedicated education unit model not only promoted student learning about quality and safety competencies via unit-based projects but also supported quality improvements in nursing care delivery. Following the initial semester of the model's implementation, a pilot study was conducted. The findings generated the evidence required to take this innovation to the next level. Moreover, the education-practice partnership, which was created to implement the clinical education delivery model, was strengthened as a result of this preliminary evaluation.

Dedicated education units (DEUs) have emerged as an important clinical education innovation within academic practice partnerships. However, rigorous evaluation has not been conducted previously. This article presents findings from a randomized, controlled, multiyear, multisite study comparing the clinical education quality for students educated in either the DEU innovation or traditional clinical education model within the same nursing course. The evaluation occurred within a larger study focusing on teaching capacity, faculty work life, and educational quality at one large, urban university collaborating with three agency partners. To examine learning outcomes, the question posed was, "In what ways, if any, does the DEU intervention, when compared to traditional clinical education, enhance educational quality?" Results indicate that educational quality and learning gains are significantly more positive for students clinically instructed in DEUs. Findings will be of interest to education and practice leaders seeking to enhance the quality of clinical teaching, learning, and nursing practice.

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This study counters the dominant view that students without a greater command of English are not ready for the rigors of nursing education.