| Sumario: | With advancements in health care and changes in reimbursement that contribute to shorter hospitalizations, health care delivery is increasingly shifting to other settings to include skilled nursing, home care, and outpatient areas. There is a well-documented shortage of hospital-based capacity for clinical placements in California. The need for clinical placements is creating an opportunity to utilize ambulatory care settings as innovative alternative learning experiences for prelicensure nursing students. Care coordination, health coaching, and population health management are examples of skills useful for all RNs that ambulatory care settings offer as learning experiences for nursing students. The skills and knowledge students gain in ambulatory care are valuable for a wide range of employment settings. Additionally, these alternative settings provide faculty other clinical placement options since acute care placements are difficult to secure and sustain. The University of San Francisco (USF), School of Nursing and Health Professions (SONHP) developed two educational models to prepare nurses for complex disease management. One was a post-graduate new RN program that focused on outpatient/ambulatory care, the Transition to Practice Program (TTP). The other was a prelicensure Master's-Entry Master's of Science in Nursing (ME-MSN) program that has an ambulatory and acute care pathway. • Registered nurses are well positioned to assist with the transformation of primary care. • Ambulatory care provides access to complex populations and interdisciplinary teams for valuable student learning. • The maturity and life experience of Master's Entry students make them a valuable student population to work with. • School of nursing-based transition to practice (TTP) models are ideal for RNs to learn about ambulatory and primary care. • To address clinical placement shortages, faculty can integrate ambulatory care experiences in prelicensure programs.
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