On Sept. 5, 2007, GNYHA will launch the second season of Bridging the Gap: Linking Clinical Practice to Academia—known as the "Gap Program."  The Gap Program is conducted in two phases: Phase One, Nurse Preceptor/Clinical Faculty Development; and Phase Two, a Nursing Student Residency Match, which is designed as a follow-up to Phase One.

Program Goals and Progress: The Gap Program is GNYHA's innovative response to the need to improve the quality and delivery of nursing care by creating a model to modernize nursing education practices. Its goals are to increase the number of experienced and knowledgeable clinical faculty and to develop better nursing recruitment practices to improve the long-term retention of nursing staff at GNYHA member hospitals. 

The program began last spring with Phase One, when 33 experienced nurses completed 12 weeks of education and skills-building and are now positioned to become adjunct faculty at nursing schools and preceptors to nursing students. Several of the Phase One Gap graduates have also secured faculty positions at Adelphi University and Lehman College, which have taken the lead among the area nursing schools to partner with hospitals to strengthen nursing education. During Phase Two, individual nursing students will be matched to each participating hospital and will rotate for two years through the units represented by the Gap nurse preceptors who were trained last spring.

Second Season: The second season of the Gap Program begins this fall. A new class of 23 nurses representing the eight hospitals that participated last spring have registered for Phase One. The participating hospitals are Beth Israel Medical Center, St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center, Jacobi Medical Center, Mount Sinai Hospital Queens, Long Beach Medical Center, Lenox Hill Hospital, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, and Long Island Jewish Medical Center.  

For more information, contact Terri Straub or Zeynep Sumer at GNYHA.