The dedicated education unit: a practice and education partnership.

Both educational institutions and health care agencies have a propensity to look to the past for solutions to their present and projected problems, such as the nursing shortage. One problem that continually surfaces and has become one of two primary limitations on expanding nursing school enrollments is finding and sustaining quality clinical experiences in acute care settings. The demand for these clinical sites continues to grow and the consequent need for effective clinical partnerships grows with it. The Dedicated Education Unit is a creative strategy for addressing the confluence of highly sophisticated marketing efforts promoting the profession of nursing as a whole, the high demand job market for nurses, and the increase in nursing school enrollments at both undergraduate and graduate levels.