The life cycle of a collaborative nursing program: the history of the nursing education program of Saskatchewan, 1996-2010

Abstract

The object of this work was to offer a history of a collaborative nursing education program in Saskatchewan, begun in 1996 until its dissolution in 2010. Nursing education in Canada has evolved over the past century. In the beginning nursing in Canada was closely associated with hospitals as training sites for nurses, commonly with religious connections. Even when government hospitals became common, nursing education continued to be delivered generally on site in hospitals and this was true until the 1970s to mid 1990s in several Canadian jurisdictions. The shift to the collaborative efforts of the past three decades has created both challenges and benefits to the partners and programs involved. This study utilized primary and secondary sources to describe the history of a collaborative nursing program in Canada, the Nursing Education Program of Saskatchewan (NEPS). Sources included interviews with key leaders and decision makers, as well as institutional, government, and regulatory association documents which contributed to an understanding of the development, delivery, and dissolution of this first collaborative baccalaureate program in Saskatchewan. One of the direct accomplishments of the NEPS partnership was the baccalaureate degree becoming the minimal level of education for entry to practice by the year 2000, an achievement that could not have occurred by the partner institutions individually. However, challenges in the partnership included the difficulties of initially joining two different governance structures and cultures, and later a third, to become one faculty and one program. Even though an integrated model was the goal, challenges in assessing tuition fees soon necessitated a revised plan where the program resembled a two-plus-two model, which saw the first two years delivered by one institution and the second two years delivered by another. It is hoped that this examination and interpretation of the historical context, process, and impact of this unique partnership on the development of nursing programs in Saskatchewan will serve to inform future collaborative efforts in nursing education so that positive successes and opportunities are taken as models, and missteps and difficulties are avoided.