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Recruitment and retention of BSN-prepared nurses are a primary goal of many hospitals as they attempt to meet the challenges of high patient acuities and increased turnover among bedside nurses. In this article, the authors describe the Academic Partnership Unit, an evidence-based clinical education program designed to train, recruit, and retain BSN-prepared nurses.

Background: Today's nursing workforce is expected to know how to identify and understand research methods and procedures and apply the most current evidence into daily practice. However, teaching evidence-based practice (EBP) in an undergraduate nursing curriculum poses unique challenges in overcoming students' perception of content relevancy to their educational experience, but also offers opportunities for innovation to facilitate critical thinking and clinical application. Aims: The aim of this article is to report on how teaching and learning innovation was infused into a research and evidence-based practice course and the effect on students' perceptions of course values and effectiveness. Methods: We used a Plan-Do-Study-Act approach to introduce innovation in an undergraduate course within a university setting. Final student course evaluations were used to measure outcomes on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = low and 5 = high) on the following dimensions: (1) value of overall educational experience, (2) relevancy of course content, (3) improvement in critical thinking, and (4) level of student-instructor interaction.Results: Overall course evaluation scores improved greatly from 2.69 to 3.90 between Spring 2020 and Fall 2021. This finding remained relatively consistent across subsequent semesters (3.79 [Spring 2022], 3.84 [Fall 2022). Students also reported appreciation and increased engagement and interest with the material after transitioning from examinations to a project-based assignment that allowed them to walk through the steps of EBP in class.Linking Evidence to Action: We identified and implemented several innovative strategies to improve student outcomes and increase the relevance of the course content.