Each year as part of our strategic planning, we spend much time reviewing program evaluations from participants. We engage with program leaders from our partner organizations to solicit feedback and gain insights on our program and how we can better meet the needs of these organizations. This is always a bittersweet activity for me. It is great to hear and see positive feedback assuring us that our work matters and makes a difference. It is not as easy to receive constructive feedback. As hard as it may be, that is really where I have found we tend to grow the most. In the last few years, we have started to hear feedback from new graduates about the length of our online content, delivery mode, and ease of use. As we conducted environmental scanning to see what was on the horizon in the world of learning and professional development, we came to terms with the fact that to meet the needs of future new graduates entering practice; we needed to make some changes.

I would be remiss if I did not emphasize how important the original work completed by the Iowa Action Coalition in 2012-2014 has been to new graduates and our employee partners over the last eight years. Their work provided evidence-based, standardized online content to new graduates in all practice settings from coast to coast. This group of Iowa nurse leaders spent countless hours developing an online curriculum that would provide healthcare organizations with limited resources and small numbers of new graduates the opportunity to provide an effective and cost-conscious program easing the transition of their new hires. Did you know that online residency curricula did not exist before this group decided to step outside the box and blaze this new trail? Iowa was first. They changed the world of nurse residency and transition-to-practice programs for the better, and without this great work, this program would not exist. Let us take a moment to acknowledge this movement and thank the visionaries who brought this to life.

With that said, technology and design have made giant leaps in the last eight years. Our online world has impacted and continues to shape how people learn and consume information. In 2022, it was time to reimagine what is possible again, taking the torch passed from the Iowa Action Coalition and further blazing the trail in online nurse residency. With that said, I am excited to present our newly redesigned online curriculum to current and future customers. This redesigned nurse residency curriculum contains the same evidence-based content, now delivered through new micro-learning videos, expert podcasts, and downloadable content. Gone are the days of sitting behind a computer to complete online modules. Learners can now consume our content in small chunks, learning on the go, all accessible from their smartphone or favorite device. Piloting the redesigned content started in the fall of 2021, and the feedback has been tremendous. We cannot wait to get more new graduates started with this completely redesigned curriculum. Want to learn more about what has changed? Check out our sneak peek and contact us to learn more about how you can bring this fresh program to your organization.

Nicole Weathers, MSN, RN, NPD-BC nicole-weathers@uiowa.edu

Iowa Online Nurse Residency Program Manager