Nursing
ed v.2 January 15, 2024 -- In some ways, classroom-based education is like airplane travel. Each seat has a price, and if it's empty at takeoff it goes unfilled. For the school, filling those seats is essential for financial survival. For the student, occupying those seats is essential for acquiring professional expertise and a degree. What's the best way to match them up? A new business model could make these matches better. Selling education according to an air travel model would solve some of the problems of the existing educational system. One such problem is the lack of incentives for quality. There is little motivation to make the educational experience a good one, since -- once they matriculate -- the buyer (the student) is locked in.
Imagine instead that the student has a shopping list of courses that must be taken, determined by the certifying State Board, e.g.
California's Board of Registered Nursing (BRN) that decides what topics must be mastered in order to receive the degree (Associate, BSN, MSN) and how many units (classroom hours) of each.
Go radical educators! Go innovative students! Go fearless nurses! |
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Dan Keller's Nursing, Health Policy & Healthcare Technology Blog
Nursing Informatics · Clinical Perspectives · Healthcare Systems
"The United States alone [among wealthy countries] treats health care as a commodity to be distributed according to the ability to pay rather than a social service to be distributed according to medical need." — JAMA (2003), 290, 798
Attendance at a given course is sold by a clearinghouse (like a travel agent selling tickets on many airlines). The student chooses by price, quality, reputation, schedule, and location. The schools become incentivized to deliver a quality product at a competitive price. Reviews and ratings become important. Teachers become driven to do a good job. The student has a new-found flexibility and consumer power in the marketplace. And nursing education at last must be good.