Partnering to educate: dedicated education units.

A current focus of the healthcare industry is centered on addressing the nursing shortage. In the midst of a nursing faculty shortage the Institute of Medicine (2010) recently released a report that calls for increasing the number of baccalaureate prepared nurses to 80% of the workforce by 2020. Therefore, nursing schools are faced with graduating more nurses to meet the demand. Yet, admission to schools of nursing are often limited because of clinical placement sites. The Dedicated Education Unit (DEU) model has been recently introduced to address the challenge of increasing the enrollment of nursing students in spite of a nationwide shortage of nursing faculty. Dedicated Education Units are clinical sites in hospitals where staff nurses serve as preceptors for students in all levels of their nursing education. This model is designed to improve practice education to better prepare students for actual practice while decreasing the number of faculty required at clinical sites. The purpose of this article is to discuss the implications of this model for nursing education, our experience with the DEU model, and issues of deliberation.