Clinical agency agreements for EKU nursing students

Where the clinical contract appears in EKU's documents

EKU's 2021-22 MSN Student Handbook, its most recent public edition, which now exists online only as an archived snapshot, names the document outright: a clinical contract and preceptor information form, one of the items MSN and post-MSN students present each semester of enrollment before clinical practice in NSC 800, NSC 876 or NSC 886. The same list adds any documentation or requirements specific to the clinical site. The form itself has its own guide, the preceptor information form; this page is about the agreement behind it.

Other EKU programs follow the same principle. The archived 2023-24 RN to BSN handbook required a signed affiliation agreement even at a student's own place of employment and wanted the agency request the semester before NSC 442C. EKU's BSN catalog ties its clinical requirements to clinical agency contractual agreements and Joint Commission rules, and the June 2020 DNP handbook bars experience hours until onboarding paperwork is done. EKU's FNP page still names a 2020-2021 MSN handbook without linking it, so confirm the current wording with your faculty.

Why agreements take time

An agreement is a contract between two organizations, so it moves at the pace of the slower one. EKU publishes no timeline, no named signer and no rule on whether a student may open the conversation with a site. What is public is the order of events: the contract and the site's documents must be current before your first clinical day, and an agreement still unsigned when the term opens takes clinical days away from you.

Two EKU facts raise the stakes. Clinical courses in EKU's archived plans lasted about 16 weeks, so a late start eats into a long block of expected hours, and the FNP track asks for 750 direct patient care hours by graduation. Some states also shape the contract itself: Missouri does not allow multi-year agreements between placement sites and EKU, so a site there signs a short-term one.

In EKU's directory, the College of Health Sciences title nearest to this contract work is Coordinator, Clinical Agreement & Compliance. How that title relates to the handbooks is covered on the Clinical Placement Coordinator page.

Sites outside Kentucky

Online EKU students train where they live, and the site's state can add steps. EKU's graduate catalog has every student tell EKU where supervised field placements will physically take place whenever they fall outside Kentucky. EKU's state authorization page then adds notes for particular states that bear directly on sites and contracts:

• Alabama and North Dakota: before nursing students start clinicals there, EKU files a notice with the state along with a fee; Alabama's is due by January 1 of each year EKU plans clinicals.
• Missouri: site contracts with EKU must be short-term rather than multi-year, and the EKU program approves each site.
• Maryland: unpaid or low-paying placements of any kind must be approved before admission.
• Colorado: EKU is not authorized to conduct clinical practicum there, and New York field placements need that state board's specific approval.

Enrollment limits, the licensure table and the full text of each note are on state authorization. If your site sits in one of these states, raise the note with your faculty before the site signs anything.