Manage Clinical & Non-Clinical Experiential Learning
How Southern Connecticut State University’s School of Nursing Strengthened Clinical Scheduling and Accreditation Readiness
March 4, 2026
When I speak with nursing leaders across the country, I consistently hear how accreditation pressure and complex clinical requirements are pushing legacy scheduling processes to their limits.
That is why my recent conversation with Dr. Kim Lacey, Professor and Director of Assessment, Quality Improvement, and Curriculum Development at Southern Connecticut State University, stood out.
What SCSU has accomplished is not simply a technology implementation. It is a shift from manual coordination to strategic oversight.
Scaling Clinical Education Without Adding Manual Work
SCSU’s School of Nursing serves a wide range of learners, including traditional BSN students, accelerated cohorts, part-time students, MSN tracks, and a doctoral program. That translates to more than 400 students in clinical placements each semester.
Before adopting nursing clinical scheduling software through CORE, scheduling required significant manual effort. Clinical coordinators relied heavily on Excel spreadsheets and hand-entered data. Even with a prior system in place, automation was limited.
Dr. Lacey described the strain clearly. “We were hand entering schedules for hundreds of students each semester. That was becoming more problematic as we continued to grow.”
With CORE’s ELMS platform, SCSU introduced a more centralized and flexible approach. The team now uses availability management, hand slotting for special circumstances, and SmartMatch automation to streamline placements.
If SmartMatch disappeared tomorrow, the impact would be immediate.
“It would slow us down again,” Dr. Lacey said. “The automation is wonderful. I think we would be lost without it.”
Beyond initial scheduling, changes are now significantly easier. Adjustments for individual students or groups can be made in just a few clicks. What once required combing through multiple spreadsheets is now visible in a single system.
Turning Clinical Data into Strategic Insight
Efficiency was only part of the story. Accreditation readiness and competency alignment were equally critical drivers.
With evolving AACN Essentials requirements, SCSU needed stronger visibility into how clinical experiences aligned with competencies and outcomes. That meant tracking more than total hours. It required understanding the types of encounters students completed and identifying gaps early.
Before CORE, this level of insight was difficult to access.
“We weren’t really actively tracking the different types of encounters,” Dr. Lacey shared. “It was a tedious process to get that information.”
Now, students log:
- Arrival and departure times
- Encounter categories such as pediatric or women’s health
- Free text reflections
- Specific skills and interventions
Preceptors approve hours directly in the system. Graduate coordinators can run detailed reports at any time. Instead of scrambling when accreditation approaches, SCSU can monitor progression continuously.
As Dr. Lacey explained,
The information is right there. It just makes everything much cleaner for us.
This shift allows the team to catch exposure gaps earlier, support students more intentionally, and walk into accreditation reviews with confidence.
Creating Transparency for Faculty and Students
The impact extends beyond administrators.
Faculty now log in and immediately see their assignments. Evaluations are streamlined, with direct links in email notifications. Evaluation completion rates have climbed to nearly 100 percent.
Students benefit from clearer communication and greater involvement in the process. They can view placements in one location, submit clinical hours through a mobile app, and indicate site preferences. SCSU has also implemented skills checklists so students can proactively seek specific clinical experiences.
Dr. Lacey noted that students transitioned easily. The system gives them more visibility and input into their clinical education while preserving appropriate oversight from faculty and coordinators.
A Holistic View of Clinical and Curriculum Alignment
In addition to scheduling and hours tracking, SCSU is using CORE CompMS to support curriculum mapping and competency alignment under the AACN Essentials.
Courses, objectives, and mapping data are centralized in one system. Even with early implementation data, the team has already been able to run reports that identify curriculum gaps and inform next steps.
For Dr. Lacey and her colleagues, the value is not just operational efficiency. It is clarity.
When clinical scheduling, evaluation management, hours tracking, and curriculum alignment live in the same ecosystem, leaders gain visibility into the entire student lifecycle. That visibility turns compliance into strategy.
For nursing programs navigating enrollment growth, accreditation pressure, and increasing clinical complexity, SCSU’s experience reinforces an important lesson. The right nursing clinical scheduling software does more than assign students to sites. It empowers programs to lead with data, foresight, and confidence.
If your team is working through similar challenges, I would welcome the opportunity to continue the conversation! Request a consultation with CORE's Campus Partnership team here.
Schedule a Consultation
Let's Get Started
Manage Clinical & Non-Clinical Experiential Learning
Still Reconciling Data for CAEP? There’s a Better Way
Experiential Learning Campuswide