Dedicated Education Unit is a cost-effective clinical education model for undergraduate nursing programs

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of clinical education models for undergraduate nursing programs. METHODS: A model-based cost-effectiveness analysis. Settings were universities with undergraduate nursing courses. Participants consisted of the decision tree that guided the structure of the model, filled in with effectiveness results from a hypothetical cohort of undergraduate nursing students. Interventions were Clinical Preceptor or Clinical Facilitator or Clinical Education Unit. Main outcome measure was effectiveness, defined as improvement of clinical education. The projected economic outcomes included incremental costs, incremental effectiveness, and incremental cost-effectiveness ratio. Monte Carlo probabilistic sensitivity analysis was employed to assess uncertainty in the model and robustness of our results. RESULTS: The model based on Clinical Education Unit could be defined as the best, followed by Clinical Facilitator and Clinical Preceptor. The incremental cost of telephone-support intervention was US$ 59,604.40 higher than the second-best performing intervention (Clinical Facilitator), and US$ 32,661.86 higher than the last best performing intervention (Clinical Preceptor). In addition, Clinical Education Unit model showed 7% and 19% more effectiveness than Clinical Facilitator and Clinical Preceptor, respectively. CONCLUSION: Clinical Education Unit represents the best choice to promote better development of skills, knowledge and socialization in undergraduate nursing programs considering its effectiveness and costs.