The Colorado Center for Nursing Excellence
The Center's mission is to "Contribute to the promise for health by developing an excellent nursing and health care workforce that meets the needs of all Coloradans"
Formed in 2002, the Center is the only neutral, nursing workforce-focused organization operating from a system- and state-wide perspective while at the same time working "on the ground" with over 175 clinical and educational partners from all segments of Colorado's healthcare workforce pipeline.
In response to the disconnected nature of Colorado’s health care continuum as well as the fragmented nursing and healthcare workforce pipeline, a core principle is an intense focus on collaboration, networking and building cross-sector solutions. The Center has used its system-wide perspective and consensus-building credibility to create innovative, high-leverage interventions that help improve the volume, quality and operations of Colorado's nursing workforce. Realizing that health care is a ‘team sport’, the Center is moving into dialogues, research, and activities that go beyond nursing to include Colorado's entire healthcare workforce pipeline.
The Center’s activities focus in several ways on creating a systemic, high-leverage impact on the nursing and healthcare workforce. Quality healthcare outcomes are very often achieved at the point of care, through patient-nurse interaction. With respect to this interaction, nursing researchers nationwide have identified the front-line nurse leader as the key link in organizing and deploying the staff and the necessary resources to achieve quality outcomes. Based on this reality, several of the Center’s programs focus on this key nursing leadership group.
Briefly listed, some Center activities include:
Clinical Scholar Development Initiative - This Colorado Department of Labor and Employment funded initiative (five day training intensive) has greatly increased the quality of clinical educators and trained over 450 Clinical Scholars since its inception, affecting over 8,000 nursing students to-date. Clinical Scholars are responsible for supervising nursing students as they acquire the 750 hours of clinical experience required to become an RN. more ...
Nurse Manager Leadership Development - This federal HRSA-funded three year program focuses on increasing staff nurse and front line leader retention, job satisfaction, leadership and problem solving skills. more ...
Improving the Quality of Patient Care: Building Advanced Skills for Leading Quality Initiatives - This Colorado Trust funded two-year initiative is developing the skills for 140 frontline nurse leaders to design and implement quality-improvement focused initiatives in their units. more ...
Nursing Faculty Recruitment and Retention Initiative - With funding from the Colorado Trust, the Center is working with 25 nursing schools to implement a four-year program focused on reducing Colorado's nursing faculty shortage. more ...
The Center's Board and Advisory Council draws from the healthcare industry, the community and education, and is deeply involved in management, strategic planning, fundraising and helping to shape the future of Colorado's nursing and healthcare workforce supply. The Center has a strong staff with broad expertise.
Colorado Center for Nursing Excellence
5290 East Yale Circle, Suite 102
Denver, CO 80222
(303) 715-0343