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Previous studies of patient status after ambulatory surgery have focused on mortality, major morbidity, and unanticipated hospitalization. In this study, we examined clinically significant but less life-threatening patient outcomes. Important problems in ambulatory surgery are posed by complications that occur at home. Careful assessment of discharge criteria is important to avoid these problems in this growing patient population.

We found no difference in mortality between an nurse practitioner-staffed medical ICU and a resident-staffed physician medical ICU. Our study adds further evidence that advanced practice providers can render safe and effective ICU care.

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PROBLEM.With an evolving focus on primary, community-based, and patient-centered care rather than acute, hospital-centric, diseasefocused care, and recognition of the importance of coordinating care and managing transitions across providers and settings of care, registered nurses need to be prepared from a different and broader knowledge base and skills set. A culture change among nurse educators and administrators and in nursing education is needed to prepare competent registered nurses capable of practicing from a health promotion, disease prevention, community-and population-focused construct in caring for a population of patients who are presenting health problems and conditions that persist across decades and/or lifetimes. While healthcare delivery is moving from the hospital to ambulatory and community settings, communitybased educational opportunities for nursing students are shrinking due to a variety of reasons, including but not limited to increased regulatory requirements, the presence of competing numbers of nursing schools and their increased enrollment of students, and decreasing availability of community resources capable and willing to precept students in an all-day interactive learning environment. METHODS. A detailed discussion of one college of nursings' journey to find an innovative solution and approach to the dilemma of limited and decreasing available community clinical sites to prepare senior level prelicensure baccalaureate nursing students for healthcare practice in the twenty-first century. FINDINGS. This article demonstrated how medium/maximum prisons can provide an ideal learning experience for not only technical nursing skills but more importantly for reinforcing key learning goals for community-based care, raising population-based awareness, and promoting cultural awareness and sensitivity. In addition, this college of nursing overcame the challenges of initiating and maintaining clinical placement in a prison facility, collaboratively developed strategies to insure student and faculty safety satisfying legal and administrative concerns for both the college of nursing and the prison, and developed educational postclinical assignments that solidified clinical course and

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To keep pace with the ever-changing health care delivery system, it is important to transform the way future nurses are educated, both in classroom and in clinical settings, to care for people along the life and care continuum, not only in acute-care settings. The purpose of this article is to describe a new approach to educating baccalaureate nursing students using immersion practicums that expose students to population health, transitions of care, care coordination, and the multiple roles a nurse engages in along the continuum. The curriculum includes 5 immersions, each with a specific life and care continuum focus to develop anticipatory thinkers.

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