From Experienced Nurses to Clinical Leaders: Building Greater Capacity Within Your Nursing Workforce
Experienced nurses bring more to a healthcare organization than years of clinical practice. They carry institutional knowledge, clinical judgment, specialty expertise, and an understanding of the patients and communities their organizations serve. As healthcare needs evolve, developing that existing talent creates an opportunity to expand clinical capacity without looking exclusively outside the organization for the next level of expertise.
Professional development can also create meaningful opportunities for experienced nurses themselves. A 2024 study published in the Journal for Nurses in Professional Development examined a program designed to help experienced nurses explore career advancement pathways. The initiative provided dedicated time, resources, and support for professional growth and reported retention within the organization, advancement into new roles, and positive participant feedback (Torres et al., 2024).
For healthcare organizations, the opportunity is to think strategically about what experienced nurses already know—and what they could be prepared to do next.
Expanding Clinical Expertise
Experience provides a strong foundation, but changing specialties or taking on more complex clinical responsibilities can require a different set of knowledge and competencies.
Structured development allows experienced nurses to build on their existing practice while developing expertise for new clinical environments. It also allows healthcare organizations to look internally when considering where additional specialty capabilities may be needed.
Creating these pathways can make professional development part of workforce planning rather than a separate educational initiative.
Developing the Nurses Who Develop Others
Greater clinical capacity is not only about specialty expertise. Experienced nurses also play an important role in transferring knowledge throughout the organization.
Preceptors and mentors help nurses navigate new roles, clinical environments, and responsibilities. But clinical experience alone does not automatically prepare someone to teach, coach, assess, and provide effective feedback.
A 2024 study published in Nurse Education in Practice developed evidence-based competency domains for registered nurse preceptor professional development, reinforcing the need to intentionally prepare nurses for the preceptor role (Ryan et al., 2024).
TruMont’s Preceptor & Mentor Development Program provides experienced nurses with structured development in areas including communication, leadership, goal alignment, teaching relationships, and time management. Participants also have access to a dedicated TruMont Faculty Coach, virtual office hours, tutoring, and cohort conferences.
Developing experienced nurses to support others allows their expertise to have an impact beyond their own individual practice.
Creating Pathways for Continued Growth
Not every experienced nurse will follow the same professional path. Some may want to deepen their expertise within a specialty. Others may be ready to precept or mentor, prepare for certification, or assume greater leadership responsibilities.
The opportunity for healthcare organizations is to create multiple ways for that growth to happen.
The AACN and AONL Guiding Principles for Academic-Practice Partnerships emphasize lifelong learning, certification and continuing education, mentoring opportunities, leadership development, and maximizing the potential of individual registered nurses. They also encourage partners to evaluate current and future RN workforce needs rather than focusing only on immediate staffing demands (AACN & AONL, 2025).
When professional development is connected to organizational priorities, individual nurse growth and workforce development can support one another.
Building Capacity Without Building Everything From Scratch
Creating development pathways internally does not mean healthcare organizations need to independently create and manage every educational component.
An Academic Partner can complement the expertise already inside the organization with curriculum, educational infrastructure, faculty support, program management, and ongoing guidance. TruMont works with organizational leadership to customize programs around specific needs and provides support through real-time and scheduled reporting, standing leadership progress meetings, an assigned Academic Coordinator, and a customized facility support portal. Learn more about the TruMont Difference.
This approach allows healthcare organizations to keep their own clinical priorities at the center while adding resources and structure to support development.
Building on the Talent You Already Have
Experienced nurses represent years of knowledge, practice, and connection to an organization. Continued development creates an opportunity to build on that foundation—expanding specialty expertise, preparing nurses to guide others, and developing greater clinical capacity across the workforce.
The next step in strengthening a nursing workforce does not always begin with adding someone new. Sometimes, it begins by creating new opportunities for the experienced nurses already there.
References
American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) & American Organization for Nursing Leadership (AONL). (2025). The guiding principles for academic-practice partnerships. https://www.aacnnursing.org/our-initiatives/education-practice/academic-practice-partnerships/the-guiding-principles-for-academic-practice-partnerships
Ryan, C., Cant, R., Ossenberg, C., Ahchay, D., Hughes, L., & Bogossian, F. (2024). Competency domains for registered nurse preceptor professional development: Evidence from a modified e-Delphi study. Nurse Education in Practice, 77, 103952. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2024.103952
Torres, D. A., Kapusta, S., Hlebichuk, J., Marzinski, S. J., & Tutino, J. (2024). Best fit for nurse advancement: Breaking down barriers to career progression. Journal for Nurses in Professional Development, 40(6), 327–333. https://doi.org/10.1097/NND.0000000000001089
To Cite This Article
Weeks, M. (2026, October). From Experienced Nurses to Clinical Leaders: Building Greater Capacity Within Your Nursing Workforce. TruMont