Regulatory Implications and Recommendations for Distance Education in Prelicensure Nursing Programs

Increasing workforce demands and projected nursing supply shortages have led to calls for innovative educational models to seamlessly prepare nurses as leaders in increasingly complex health care systems. National recommendations call for an increase in nurses prepared at the bachelor's and doctoral levels by 80% and 50%, respectively, by 2020. This amplification of nursing leadership and radical transformation in nursing education has led to a proliferation of the use of technology in nursing education. Because most boards of nursing (BONs) approve nursing education programs as part of their mission of public protection, they must determine the best practices for the use of such technology, including distance education, in nursing education. This article addresses current and evolving educational strategies using distance education as a teaching methodology in nursing curricula, presents recommendations for providing more consistency across BONs, identifies the regulatory perspectives of distance education programs from a variety of viewpoints, and presents regulatory guidelines for nursing education prelicensure distance education programs.