NCSBN: Transition to Practice study

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

transition to practice

transition to practice (ttp) is an expansive initiative of ncsbn that provides a way to empower and formalize the journey of newly licensed nurses from education to practice. ncsbn, with input from numerous nursing leaders, developed a national, standardized transition to practice model implemented through regulation. a multi-year study is being conducted to look at the outcomes of this model.

learn more about ncsbn's ttp study and utilize the ttp toolkit, which thoroughly explains the model.

description pdf

ncsbn’s transition to practice model is intended to be collaboratively implemented with education and practice, but through regulation. collaboration will be essential for this model to be successful. educators are the experts in curriculum design and evaluation and will be able to assist with the design of the transition modules. practice provides a crucial link that will provide new graduates with planned practice experiences with qualified nurses to mentor them. nursing regulators provide new graduates with information on their scope of practice, the nurse practice act, and maintaining their license throughout their careers. if adopted, regulation will be able to enforce the transition program through licensure.

this is an inclusive model, which would take place in all health care settings that hire newly graduated nurses and for all educational levels of nurses, including practical nurse, associate degree, diploma, baccalaureate and other entry-level graduates. the new graduate must first take and pass the nclex®, obtain employment and then enter the transition program.

the preceptors in this model will be trained and most will work one-on-one with newly graduated nurses, though in some settings team preceptorships may be used. this model is strongly dependent on a well-developed preceptor-nurse relationship. novice nurses will learn the importance of being a seasoned, dedicated preceptor and the responsibility to transition new nurses into practice. in the future, becoming preceptors and mentors for new nurses will be an expected part of professional nursing....

...the time period for this transition regulatory model will be six months, though it is expected that the new graduate will have ongoing support for another six months.

in order for the new graduates to maintain licensure after one year in practice, it will be incumbent upon them to provide the board of nursing with a transition to practice verification (tpv) form, which will be signed by the new graduates, their preceptors and their supervisors, verifying the new nurse has met all the requirements of the jurisdiction’s transition program.

[PACNWNURSING]

Having just completed a nurse new grad residency and ER orientation I can say they cannot implement a transition program fast enough. I had a general one day nurse orientation, a one day a week, 9 week residency program, both were useless. A 6 week too short ER orientation program. I already cannot wait to be able to seek employment in a different dept. Training in nursing school vary from school to school some great some bad. A standardized transition program is desperately needed for new graduates. Some hospitals offer great new graduate residency program while others offer poor programs. A standardized high quality transition programs is desperately needed for new graduates.

[WildcatFanRN, BSN, RN]

I know this is an older post, but I wish they would go ahead and implement this idea. My state requires a 120 hour preceptorship prior to graduation and then another 120 hour preceptorship after graduation and before they will grant you your license. It used to be you had to get the 120 hours done before you would get authorization to test. Pretty much you had to find a job before you took NCLEX. The problem with this was that if you couldn't find a job you couldn't test, now you can test just not get your permanent license. I think they are reviewing that since a lot of the major hospitals right now just aren't hiring like they used too. I talked to one manager who actually hated the 120 hour requirement because usually as soon as someone completed it they left.

If something like TTP is implemented as standard I wonder where they will be getting all the preceptors from? Some people love to preceptor, most imho do not. Also, cost of training new grads is one of the main reasons I'm hearing as to why hospitals are reluctant to hire right now. What incentives will they give to increase the number of preceptors and how will that factor into the costs of training? How will they make sure that only people who want to do it will be preceptors?

Sounds like a lovely idea, I just wonder how it would actually be implemented?