NP schools now required to find clinical sites?

This. Don't get too excited there are only minimal changes to the accreditation standard which are vastly overstated on the linked website by the OP. The standard in place and used to accredit schools was:

"Clinical practice experiences are provided for students in all programs, including those with distance education offerings. Clinical practice experiences involve activities that are designed to ensure students are competent to enter nursing practice at the level indicated by the degree/certificate program." III-E (2013)

This certainly didn't mean that schools arranged clinicals for all students (including distance) much less in accessible ways. I went to a top-ranked program and they literally told us they considered a 2.5 hour commute (one way) reasonable for clinical sites. Not only that, but at least one semester you would be expected to take a clinical site beyond this "commuting distance" and still be required to be on campus so would likely need "redundant housing." At that wasn't even distance students.

My point is, CCNE had already made clear that by "provided for students" they include all the drastic measures students are taking to get clinical sites now. There literally is no mechanism for them to address those students who never find clinical placements because the accreditation reviews are based on students who are in clinical settings and not those who had to drop out or late a leave of absence. The use of the passive voice "are provided" lacks any specificity for who is responsible. This language allows the school to claim that the student is the one who is to provide the clinical site. The reference to distance programs simply means that clinicals must be equally required of distance and B&M students but not that schools are responsible for arranging either.

Believe it or not, the new standard is actually more watered down that the previous one. Starting in January 2019 it changes to:

"Clinical practice experiences are provided for students in all programs, including those with distance education offerings. Clinical practice experiences align with student and program outcomes." III-H (2018)

They removed the requirement that clinical practice experience be structured for students to achieve competence but only that the align with program outcomes and are competent to function a part of interdisciplinary teams. Don't buy into the hype. The CCNE has only placated those who spoke out with hollow promises while making it easier for schools to churn out graduated will lower quality experience and enroll more students who likely will never see a diploma.

Pro-Student, you speak like the faculty and professors that do not truly understand the standards. Are you associated with any school?

Did you know that there is a CCNE supplemental manual for the standards?

Did you know the purpose of this the manual is to provide additional information regarding the meaning of the standards to the programs from the CCNE?

Again in regards to the key element, "Clinical practice experiences are provided for students in all programs, including those with distance education offerings." III-E (2013)

Below is the CCNE additional explanation of the key elements meaning which states,

"Please note: If clinical practice experiences are not provided for any track within any degree and/or APRN certificate program, regardless of mode of program delivery, then it is cause for a compliance concern" (https://www.aacnnursing.org/Portals/42/CCNE/PDF/Supplemental-Resource.pdf)

Pro-Student, so you think the CCNE is stating "compliance concern" for students who do not prepare their own clinical experience? If like you say, the standards do not mean programs must prepare clinical experience but rather the student, then who is the CCNE talking to when it states to programs this, "If clinical practice experiences are not provided...then it is cause for a compliance concern"? And why would the CCNE state this?

Schools NOT preparing clinical experience would be the weakest most impractical interpretation of the standards. Schools NOT providing clinical sites would be just as weak. It would be an open-and-shut case in a court of law. The weight of litigation and liability is placed on these standards and are the schools to own.

Now in all fairness, does it specifically say students are suppose to? Not even close. Does it specifically say schools are suppose to? Yeah, pretty close.

Now when the standards state schools are responsible for ensuring clinical sites, that is pretty darn clear. It definitely does not state students are responsible to do this. Clinical sites are a physical resource. In that same key element, it list other things the school is responsible for like faculty, classroom, staff, meeting space. Go read II-B and ask yourself, what other item is the student responsible for? You'll find nothing. So you believe that in II-B everything is the schools responsibility like faculty and staff, except for clinical sites? That is the students responsibility!? I don't think so. That document is written to the schools. Not to the students. It is telling the schools what is required of the program. II-B does not state "schools are responsible for ensuring students are responsible for finding clinical sites".

And again, we validated our interpretation with the CCNE. We have these proofs.

Attitudes, that is the biggest barrier to this change. Attitudes and misinformation like what you are presenting. Comments like the above I suspect have a bias motivation. Why on earth would any student or change advocate comment like this? Pro-Student what is your name? Do you think programs should be required and forced to find clinical sites for students?

Also a note to all those who wonder if the CCNE will enforce their standards, makes no difference. We will enforce their standards. Know that the standards are a contract the school must follow, remember this if needs be for any pursuit you may have in litigation if you endure financial or other damages.

Lastly,

Just to clarify the 2018 standards state all the following

Again the 2018 standards state all of the the following:

• The program is responsible for ensuring adequate physical resources and clinical sites. (CCNE 2018, p. 9)
  
• Clinical sites are sufficient, appropriate, and available to achieve the program's outcome. (CCNE 2018, p. 9)
  
• "...clinical sites are reviewed periodically, and resources are modified as needed". (CCNE 2018, p. 9)
  
• A defined process is used to determine the adequacy of clinical sites. (CCNE 2018, p. 9)
  
• Clinical practice experiences are provided for students in all programs, including those with distance education programs. (CCNE 2018, p. 16)
  
• "Please note: If clinical practice experiences are not provided for any track within any degree and/or APRN certificate program, regardless of mode of program delivery, then it is cause for a compliance concern". (Supplemental Manual, 2017)
  

Pro-Student, you speak like the faculty and professors that do not truly understand the standards. Are you associated with any school?

Did you know that there is a CCNE supplemental manual for the standards?

Did you know the purpose of this the manual is to provide additional information regarding the meaning of the standards to the programs from the CCNE?

Again in regards to the key element, "Clinical practice experiences are provided for students in all programs, including those with distance education offerings." III-E (2013)

Below is the CCNE additional explanation of the key elements meaning which states,

"Please note: If clinical practice experiences are not provided for any track within any degree and/or APRN certificate program, regardless of mode of program delivery, then it is cause for a compliance concern" (https://www.aacnnursing.org/Portals/42/CCNE/PDF/Supplemental-Resource.pdf)

Pro-Student, so you think the CCNE is stating "compliance concern" for students who do not prepare their own clinical experience? If like you say, the standards do not mean programs must prepare clinical experience but rather the student, then who is the CCNE talking to when it states to programs this, "If clinical practice experiences are not provided...then it is cause for a compliance concern"? And why would the CCNE state this?

Schools NOT preparing clinical experience would be the weakest most impractical interpretation of the standards. Schools NOT providing clinical sites would be just as weak. It would be an open-and-shut case in a court of law. The weight of litigation and liability is placed on these standards and are the schools to own.

Now in all fairness, does it specifically say students are suppose to? Not even close. Does it specifically say schools are suppose to? Yeah, pretty close.

Now when the standards state schools are responsible for ensuring clinical sites, that is pretty darn clear. It definitely does not state students are responsible to do this. Clinical sites are a physical resource. In that same key element, it list other things the school is responsible for like faculty, classroom, staff, meeting space. Go read II-B and ask yourself, what other item is the student responsible for? You'll find nothing. So you believe that in II-B everything is the schools responsibility like faculty and staff, except for clinical sites? That is the students responsibility!? I don't think so. That document is written to the schools. Not to the students. It is telling the schools what is required of the program. II-B does not state "schools are responsible for ensuring students are responsible for finding clinical sites".

And again, we validated our interpretation with the CCNE. We have these proofs.

Attitudes, that is the biggest barrier to this change. Attitudes and misinformation like what you are presenting. Comments like the above I suspect have a bias motivation. Why on earth would any student or change advocate comment like this? Pro-Student what is your name? Do you think programs should be required and forced to find clinical sites for students?

Also a note to all those who wonder if the CCNE will enforce their standards, makes no difference. We will enforce their standards. Know that the standards are a contract the school must follow, remember this if needs be for any pursuit you may have in litigation if you endure financial or other damages.

Lastly,

Just to clarify the 2018 standards state all the following

Again the 2018 standards state all of the the following:

• The program is responsible for ensuring adequate physical resources and clinical sites. (CCNE 2018, p. 9)
  
• Clinical sites are sufficient, appropriate, and available to achieve the program's outcome. (CCNE 2018, p. 9)
  
• "...clinical sites are reviewed periodically, and resources are modified as needed". (CCNE 2018, p. 9)
  
• A defined process is used to determine the adequacy of clinical sites. (CCNE 2018, p. 9)
  
• Clinical practice experiences are provided for students in all programs, including those with distance education programs. (CCNE 2018, p. 16)
  
• "Please note: If clinical practice experiences are not provided for any track within any degree and/or APRN certificate program, regardless of mode of program delivery, then it is cause for a compliance concern". (Supplemental Manual, 2017)
  

Wow! So much ignorance it's hard to know where to start.

Look, your hanging you argument on mainly on the phrase, "clinical practice experiences are provided for students in all programs." which, at a cursory glace sounds like schools have to arrange clinicals for students. But if we put on our thinking hats we can easily see there are several major problems with that assumption.

1. No where does it say who is obligated to provide the specifics for clinicals. They conveniently make use of something called the passive voice to avoid saying that schools are required to make the arrangements.

2. This exact same language is also present in the previous standards under which many programs that did not provide any clinical placements kept their accreditation and many new ones became accredited. If the exact same phrase didn't require what you say it does, why would it magically mean something different now?

3. Your idea that students who choose to attend a program that does not provide clinical experiences have an recourse (legal or otherwise) is entirely misguided and based on a fundamental lack of understanding of how the legal system works. (I guess it's not surprising because your own website references articles that say the exact opposite of what you claim they do.)

First, it's no wonder the CCNE encourages complaints to be filed with them because they can conveniently file these in the trash seeing as how any student who complains that a school doesn't do something it was never required to do in the first place clearly has no legitimate complaint.

Second, students do not have a contract with an accreditation organization like the CCNE and therefore, likely have no standing to even bring suit again them. But even if you did have standing to bring a suit and accreditation standards did constitute a contract between the student and the organization, there is still no breech of contract since the standards never explicitly require the school to arrange all the details of clinicals.

Third, you would have standing to sue your school but your case would be immediately dismissed unless the school had done something like actually promise you they would completely arrange your clinicals. I have never seen a school that makes that promise and every school I know of is extremely careful to avoid making any specific claim regarding clinical sites.

Fourth, you could file a complaint with the DOE but, again, since the CCNE never actually promised to do what you claim they have, there is really nothing they can/will do.

I totally get that you fell for the hype. The CCNE, to their credit, did a good job of carefully wording their standards and statements to sound like you got what you wanted. That's why its so important to think and read critically. You think I'm biased because I don't agree with your pie in the sky interpretation. You question my motivation because I'm see through the smoke and mirrors. Sure, I am biased. I don't think NP education is going to change so easily. Meanwhile, I'd ask you to consider your bias. You want to think all it took was some signatures and emails and "Voila" major change in NP education. You're ready to celebrate a major victory before its even happened and without any evidence that it will. Some folks at the CCNE are sure celebrating how easy it was to fool a thorn in their side into one of the cheerleaders.

Look, the CCNE could easily have actually changed the language in their documents. They could easily have made explicit claims about clinical requirements. But they choose not to. Instead, they choose to draft language that would sound like what people wanted to hear without causing major disruptions to NP education. You can question my motivations but if we want things to change, we have to demand actual change. I would love to be wrong about this but so far, all your "proofs" have only convinced me how nothing of substance has actually changed.