Spring/Summer 2011 Placement Cycle:

Hospitals are encouraged to extend their unit availability once/year, in August. This will hopefully result in less work for the hospitals, accommodate placement periods for schools on various terms, and provide schools increased visibility into potential placement opportunities.

August 16 - 27, 2010
Hospitals review, confirm and extend availability through December 31, 2011 for both cohort and preceptor programs. We understand some hospitals will need to modify future availability if census and building plans change. These changes can be done as needed throughout the year.

August 30 - September 17, 2010 (Cohort) (Preceptor requests can be submitted August 30 - November 12)
Schools make requests for all courses that start January 2011 through the end of the spring/summer terms. (courses that usually end by August 31)

September 20 - October 1, 2010 (Cohort) (Preceptor placement decisions due December 12)
Hospitals review proposed requests and make placement decisions. Hospitals are encouraged to accept long-standing/historic placements and to decline proposals they know they cannot accommodate as quickly as possible, as a courtesy to schools.

The Centralized Clinical Placement System is an internet-based tool designed to help address and improve the growing nursing shortage problem. Underutilization of existing clinical placement sites for nursing students and an inefficient clinical placement system combine to form one of the barriers to increasing the number of qualified nurses.

This system brings together school and clinical agency information in a centralized, online format. This enables schools and clinical agencies to achieve a higher level of operating performance: (i) schools can rapidly match clinical placement opportunities for student cohorts (group of 8-10 students) and (ii) clinical agencies can effectively manage a single schedule (for all participating schools) while increasing the number of students within their agency, which provides direct observation and potential identification of future employees.

Thank you to the Betty Irene Moore Nursing Initiative for their financial support for this project.