Transition Into Practice: Beyond Hospital Walls

Background: Historically, evidence has shown the importance of nurse residency programs, yet few or-ganizations have implemented them outside of hos-pital settings. This article shares nurses' experiences and outcomes in an out-of-hospital nurse residency program that transitioned bachelor of science in nurs-ing graduates through an academic-practice partner-ship. Method: A mixed methods design was used that consisted of qualitative interviews (pre-and postresi-dency) and quantitative surveys (Casey-Fink Graduate Nurse Experience Survey, a job satisfaction survey, and a preceptee evaluation survey). Results: Forty-four nurses participated. Qualitative findings were support-ed by the quantitative data. Results showed that con-fidence, competence, job satisfaction, and retention improved with an out-of-hospital residency program.Conclusion: Ensuring that every new graduate is af-forded a nurse residency should be the goal, regard-less of setting, to reduce turnover, ensure workforce stability, and ultimately improve patient outcomes. Academic-practice partnerships can help build re-source capacity, especially in these settings, to achieve this goal. [J Contin Educ Nurs. 2023;54(7):327-336.]