Student placement for School Coordinators

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Request student placement

Thank you for considering Advocate Health Care and Aurora Health Care for your clinical placement. This webpage is recommended for all school coordinators.

We are proud to sponsor nursing and medical assistant clinical rotations at locations across Wisconsin & Illinois. Please submit your request using myClinicalExchange. All requests will be reviewed by Advocate Health Care and Aurora Health Care Clinical Placement Specialists and site leadership; submission of a clinical request does not guarantee placement.

IMPORTANT: Please review the information on this site carefully as Wisconsin and Illinois site specific information is below.

Walden University- Please note, students must be employed by Advocate Health Care and Aurora Health Care.

Important deadlines

When requesting clinical placement for groups, it’s important to understand the deadlines for both traditional semester and trimester sequences.

Wisconsin
Download WI AAH Clinical Placement Calendar for Group and Preceptorship Placements [PDF]

Illinois
Download IL AAH Clinical Placement Calendar for Group and Preceptorship Placements [PDF]

Note: these dates do not pertain to RN to BSN, MSN, or DNP students.

RN to BSN, MSN, and DNP students: 4-6-week deadline for student request if a legal agreement is in place. 2-3-month deadline for completed paperwork if a legal agreement is needed.

RN to BSN, MSN, and DNP (Doctor of Nursing Practice) placement

Your placement may be clinical or non-clinical (project or observation).

If you are a student with a project, please review the requirements on the project information page

School Placement Coordinator notes

Advocate Health Care and Aurora Health Care do not locate preceptors for the following student clinical rotations:

  • RN to BSN, MSN, CNS, CNL, Nurse Practitioner (Illinois only), DNP
  • Ensure that the location for the placement request is entered into the correct site and matches the work area of the preceptor.

Allow 2 months from the initial request to the clinical start.

For pediatric clinical rotation requests at Advocate Children’s Hospital, please note the following:

  • Inpatient pediatrics/specialty pediatrics (PICU, Peds ER, Pediatric surgery, pediatric specialties) will require:
  • PNP-AC program enrollment or PNP-PC program enrollment as elective rotations.
  • FNP program enrollment with 6 weeks with primary care pediatrics as a prerequisite.
  • PA programs will require pediatric rotations to be completed as a prerequisite. Any surgical subspecialty will also require general surgery and pediatrics as a prerequisite.

For nursing preceptor projects, please visit the nursing project/research page for further instructions.

Preceptors cannot sign preceptor agreements presented by the school/university. Please contact our team if any questions.

RN to BSN information: The preceptor must be in a non-clinical role and hold at least a BSN degree in Nursing. The preceptor cannot be in a patient-facing role.

Placement request process for school coordinators

Step 1: Ensure a school affiliation agreement is in place between your school and Advocate Health Care or Aurora Health Care. If there is not an agreement in place, please contact:

To help us address your needs better, please use the table in this document when sending inquiries. This will allow our team to process your inquiry efficiently.

Additional notes:

NOTE: new agreements may take up to 3 months.

If an RN to BSN or post-licensure student, please ensure a preceptor has been selected prior to submitting your request. Ensure that the location for the placement request is entered into the correct site and matches the work area of the preceptor.

A physician or APRN may serve as the preceptor for a nurse practitioner student. Please note: if the physician or APRN is not employed by Advocate Health Care and Aurora Health Care, a preceptorship agreement between the hospital, school/university, and external employer (three-way agreement) will be required before the request may be approved. This agreement may take up to 3 months.

We will assist in coordinating preceptors for medical assistants, undergraduate RN, accelerated BSN/MSN (pre-licensure) students.

Illinois pre-licensure students: 1:1 preceptorship locations include Condell Medical Center, Lutheran General Hospital, Illinois Masonic Medical Center, Trinity Hospital, Christ Medical Center, and Sherman Hospital.

Review the placement process document for Continuing Health [PDF] (Home Health).

Step 2: Getting started with myClinicalExchange (mCE)

  1. All student requests must be submitted via myClinicalExchange (mCE).
  2. Ensure your school has an account with mCE and that Advocate Aurora Health is on your list of organizations.
  3. If your school currently use mCE for another hospital system, review your checklist to ensure it mirrors the Advocate Aurora Health checklist. Contact mCE to update your checklist.
  4. If your school does not use mCE for another hospital system, contact mCESupport@healthstream.com to obtain a Basic Setup form (mCESupport@healthstream.com).

myClinicalExchange Additional Training and Q&A Sessions for school coordinators

Training questions: Email mCE-Training@healthstream.com They offer weekly Q&A sessions every Tuesday from 12pm-12:45pm CST)

Support email: mCESupport@healthstream.com

Support phone: 1-800-521-0574 (Mon-Fri 8am-5pm MT)

  1. Press 1 for HealthStream
  2. Press # (do not enter ticket number)
  3. Press 4

School coordinators- Set up email preferences in mCE

Turn on your automated email in your profile and select “Save my email preference setting.” You may access this via the Account Settings in the upper righthand corner.

account preferences settings graphic

Select the following email notifications in mCE:

  • Pending rotation instructor association- inform when a rotation is starting soon that does not have an instructor assigned
  • Pending rotation student association- rotation starting soon that does not have student assigned
  • Rotation in Compliance
  • Rotation in Non Compliance
  • Student Account Expiry
  • Student Compliance Expiry
  • Student checklist submit for approval

Important Note: Students may not enter requests into myClinicalExchange (mCE)

Step 3: Have the following information available to enter the request.

  • Start and end date of the rotation
  • Student name, phone number, email address, and anticipated graduation date (if a post-licensure preceptorship)
  • Level of student
  • Total number of onsite clinical hours per student
  • HSR determination letter (if a project course for post-licensure students)

Step 4: Complete the request form in myClinicalExchange before the appropriate deadline above (pre-licensure versus post-licensure request).

Be mindful of the following when entering the request:

  1. Placement request form/required comment: Enter the level of student (sophomore, junior, senior, 2nd year, 3rd year, etc.)
  2. Must select shift start/end time for each rotational request. *Enter 0000-2359 for post-licensure requests and projects.
  3. Department/Unit- A department and unit must be selected for each rotational request. Select your primary request and enter secondary requests in the comment section.
  4. Clinical hours/Total hours: Enter the exact number of hours each individual student will complete per rotational request (e.g., the unit approved 8 students however 6 students are on site each week. Two students are not on site each week in this example). Enter the total number of hours one student will complete in the rotation.
  5. Enter one request for each clinical rotation. Select all days of interest and enter a comment explaining the various days available for one clinical rotation (e.g., we are available Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays).
  6. Preceptorship- Each student requires a separate rotation request. (Example- 2 students on one unit requires 2 requests).
  7. Continuing Health (home health) request: Enter the top 3 zip codes of preference in the comment section.
  8. Draft status- please ensure changes are made as requested/needed and the request is submitted/returned to the hospital. We cannot process a request in Draft status. We also cannot view Notes or receive emails entered by the school while in Draft status.

Post-Licensure student request

  1. The request end date may not go beyond December 31st. If the rotation will extend beyond the end of the year, submit a second request beginning in January.
  2. Upload the Determination Memo to the request or Documents section of the rotation.
  3. Required comment: Enter the name and email address of the preceptor.
  4. Select the correct program.
    1. (Illinois-only) Inpatient Nurse Practitioner- Preceptorship- Post-licensure or NP/Nurse Practitioner… for nurse practitioner clinical hours with patient care. Select MSN or DNP if the nurse practitioner student will complete a project for the rotation. (Wisconsin-only) Select AAH Undergraduate Medical Education.
    2. …Preceptorship- if the student will obtain/observe clinical skills or project/capstone planning (e.g., CNS clinical experience, MSN education experience)
    3. …Preceptorship Clinical hours- if the student will provide direct patient care (e.g., RN licensed graduate student)
    4. …Preceptorship Project- if a project is required for this course (e.g., quality improvement project, practice change project, etc.)
    5. …Preceptorship Virtual- if the student will remain virtual throughout the practicum experience
  5. If clinical hours will be completed concurrently at 2 hospitals, please enter the request in the (Off-site) hospital location and enter both locations in the request. **If clinical hours will be completed during different time frames at 2 hospitals, please enter 2 separate requests, one for each hospital.

Step 5: Once the request is submitted to our team, we will review the request and approve or deny the request. Please ensure email notifications are enabled to receive notification the rotation is approved/denied and/or students/instructors are in compliance for the rotation. If a post-licensure graduate student request, you will receive a clearance email from our team as well.

Note: (Three-way legal agreement) If a 3-way legal agreement is required, the request will not be approved until the agreement is fully executed. For example, there is a current legal agreement with your school but the preceptor is not employed directly by Advocate Health Care and Aurora Health Care. A three-way agreement is required for the request. The request in mCE will not be approved until the agreement is fully executed.

Approval and next steps

You will receive an email with the decision on your request at least 4 weeks prior to your clinical start date.

Cancel request

If you will no longer utilize the approved request, please cancel the request in myClinicalExchange as soon as possible.

  1. Click the Request number on the home page
  2. Scroll down
  3. Click Cancel Request

Denied request

If the request is denied, an email is sent to the school coordinator who submitted the request. If the coordinator changed whereas coordinator A submitted the request and coordinator B is hired, coordinator B will not get an automated email and should login to see request approvals/denials. Denied requests may be reviewed on your home page.

Click the 3 lines on the upper left-hand corner of your screen. Select Status: Denied, then select Search. Review two screenshots below:

screenshot of menu and search bar icons
denial search box graphic

Approved request

Review details of approved request:

Utilize Rotation Manager to review details of the approved request (units/dates/shift times). Search Future Rotations. Review two screenshots below:

approval menu graphic
approval search box graphic

If the request is approved, students may be added to the rotation two ways:

  1. Student pays for mCE account: The student registers in mCE. Once registered, the student may be assigned to the rotation.
  2. School pays for mCE account: The school uploads the roster, which is the registration process, and assigns the student to the rotation.

Assign student(s)/instructors(s) to the rotation at least 4 weeks before the start date.