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This advanced nursing education project involves doctor of nursing practice students
from the psychiatric/mental health nurse practitioner and family nurse practitioner
specialties enrolled in the University of Minnesota, School of Nursing (SON). The
purpose of this project is to improve the readiness of nurses with doctor of nursing
practice degrees as psychiatric/mental health nurse practitioners (PMHNP DNP) and
family nurse practitioners (FNP DNP) to work in underserved and rural mental health
settings with primary care services addressing complex health care needs of people
with mental illness, and practice integrated interprofessional team-based care.

Goals of this project are to: 1) create one and expand two academic-clinical
partnerships between the University of Minnesota (UMN) School of Nursing (SON) and
mental health clinical partners,Touchstone Mental Health (TMH) and Wilder Foundation
(WF), and Northern Pines (NPines) by adding primary care family nurse practitioner
services and and enhanced interprofessional clinical learning activities 2) enhance the
PMHNP and FNP DNP didactic and clinical and create joint didactic, simulation and
clinical learning activities; 3) recruit and develop clinical preceptors to work in integrated
care settings, and 4) demonstrate improvement in PMHNP and FNP NP student
readiness and willingness to practice integrated, interprofessional team-based care with
persons who live with mental illness and complex medical conditions underserved in
rural and urban areas.