About Confident Nurse Academy

Your Partners in Accelerating Clinical Readiness

For new graduate nurses and nurses transitioning to higher-acuity care.

Hospitals are being asked to care for increasingly complex patients with nurses who need more support than ever before.

1 in 10 New graduate nurses

The latest research found that only 1 in 10 new graduate nurses demonstrates entry-level clinical competency before beginning orientation. That means hospitals are starting farther behind than ever before—and educators, preceptors, and nurse leaders are expected to close the gap.

The pressures surrounding transition to practice

Educators are already stretched thin.

Preceptors are often only a few years ahead of the nurses they're mentoring.

Experienced nurses continue to leave the bedside.

Yet new graduate nurses are expected to become practice-ready in the middle of it all.

That's why we built Confident Nurse Academy.

Our purpose

Why We Exist

Every nurse remembers what it felt like to walk onto the unit during those first few months as a new grad, or as a nurse taking on sicker patients.

The uncertainty.

The fear of missing something.

The constant feeling that everyone else knew something you didn't.

We remember it, too.

After years spent at the bedside, in classrooms, simulation labs, teaching NCLEX, building hospital education programs, developing clinical practice initiatives, and mentoring thousands of nurses, we kept seeing the same problem.

New nurses weren't struggling because they lacked intelligence.

They were struggling because the gap between school and bedside had become too wide.

Meanwhile, educators and preceptors were having to do more with less, making it nearly impossible to find a feasible (repeatable) way to bridge that gap.

As nurse educators ourselves, we kept asking:

How can we expect educators to take on one more thing when they're already carrying so much? And how can we expect preceptors to teach when they are still so new themselves?

Meaningful nursing education takes meaningful work.

We know what it takes to create meaningful nursing education. Every high-quality lesson requires hours of research, curriculum development, instructional design, presentations, handouts, assessments, and thoughtful teaching.

We also know mandatory education often lands on teams that already have nothing left to give.

We've been the educator

Trying to build meaningful orientation while juggling a hundred competing priorities.

We've been the preceptor

Who felt personally responsible for teaching a new graduate everything before something critical was missed.

We've watched the bedside change

Experienced nurses leave while newer nurses are asked to precept because there simply isn't anyone else available.

We love nurse educators. We love preceptors.

They're doing extraordinary work under extraordinary circumstances.

The clinical competency crisis is well documented in the literature, but asking educators and preceptors to simply work harder isn't the solution.

Clinical readiness had become one of healthcare's greatest challenges.

So we built Confident Nurse Academy.

Not to replace orientation. To strengthen it.

Not to replace educators. To multiply their impact.

Not to teach everything. To accelerate the clinical judgment nurses need first.

Because education doesn't just build confidence.

Education saves lives.

Meet the Nurses Behind Confident Nurse Academy

Our Founders

Maureen Osuna

MSN, RN, CCRN-K

Known to millions as Nurse Mo, Maureen is the founder of Straight A Nursing®, one of the profession's most trusted nursing education platforms. Since 2014, the Straight A Nursing Podcast has received more than 12 million downloads.

Maureen's experience includes Medical ICU, Trauma/Neuro ICU, PACU, hospital education, university teaching, precepting, and online curriculum development. Her educational programs have helped thousands of nursing students build stronger clinical foundations and transition into practice with greater confidence.

At Confident Nurse Academy, Maureen brings her talent for turning complex material into clear, connected clinical thinking. She helps nurses recognize patterns, understand the “why,” and step into practice with greater confidence.

Stephanie Griffeth

MSN, RN, CCRN-K

Stephanie has dedicated her career to helping nurses think more critically, recognize patient deterioration sooner, and deliver safer patient care.

Her experience spans med-surg, intensive care, PACU, university nursing education, NCLEX preparation, curriculum development, and system-level clinical education. As an award-winning educator, she has taught thousands of nurses and developed programs focused on critical care, hemodynamics, sepsis, and evidence-based practice.

Stephanie's teaching philosophy is inspired by physicist Richard Feynman and the idea that true understanding means being able to explain something simply. Her interest in the neuroscience of learning and stress regulation also shapes how she designs education that is clear, practical, memorable, and easier to apply under pressure. At Confident Nurse Academy, she transforms difficult clinical concepts into practical thinking tools nurses can use on their very next shift, because she believes education saves lives.

Why this partnership works

Better Together

Between us, we've taught nursing students, new graduates, experienced nurses and preceptors, nurse educators, and critical care clinicians. We've built university curricula, developed hospital education programs, created nationally recognized educational content, led bedside practice change initiatives across health systems, and reached millions of nurses through one of the profession's largest educational platforms.

The question

How do we accelerate clinical readiness without increasing the burden on educators and preceptors?

Confident Nurse Academy is our answer.

Together, we've continued working directly with healthcare organizations while bringing decades of clinical experience, nursing education, curriculum development, bedside practice change, and strategic instructional design into one scalable solution built specifically for today's healthcare workforce.

Built to multiply impact

Our Leverage

Hospitals don't need another learning management system.

They don't need another library of recorded lectures.

Nurse educators don't need one more mandatory education assignment to build.

What they need is leverage.

We teach what matters most, first.

Confident Nurse Academy was designed to multiply the impact of the educators and preceptors you already have. We don't try to teach everything.

We focus on the highest-leverage clinical concepts that accelerate clinical judgment, strengthen prioritization, sharpen pattern recognition, improve clinical communication, build professional confidence, and help nurses recognize patient deterioration sooner.

The result

The Clinical Compound Effect™

Every lesson inside Confident Nurse Academy is intentionally designed to contribute to The Clinical Compound Effect™. Small improvements in clinical thinking compound into better decisions, stronger teamwork, safer patient care, and a more confident nursing workforce.

For nurses

Recognize deterioration sooner
Think more critically under pressure
Prioritize more effectively
Communicate concerns with greater confidence
Collaborate more effectively with the healthcare team
Escalate concerns sooner
Make safer clinical decisions
Feel more supported during transition to practice

For education teams

Educators spend less time reteaching foundational concepts
Preceptors spend less time filling knowledge gaps
Leaders gain greater consistency across new graduate cohorts

For patients

Patients receive safer care

That's The Clinical Compound Effect™.

It's not one lesson. It's hundreds of better clinical decisions that build on one another, shift after shift and nurse after nurse.

Stop rebuilding your workforce. Start developing it, without adding burden to your educators or preceptors.

What guides our work

Our Mission

To accelerate clinical readiness so every new graduate nurse or nurse stepping into higher-acuity care enters practice better prepared to recognize patient deterioration, think critically, prioritize safely, communicate effectively, and deliver exceptional patient care.

Because readiness matters

Every nurse deserves to feel prepared.
Every educator deserves reinforcement.
Every hospital deserves a scalable solution.
And every patient deserves a nurse who is ready.

Confident Nurse Academy is an independent educational offering developed collaboratively by Digital Health Education LLC and Hello Healer®. This content is designed solely for the purpose of professional nurse development and continuing education. It is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by any hospital, medical device manufacturer, or commercial entity. All materials reflect the independent clinical judgment, research, and educational expertise of the course developers. No commercial support was received for the development of this content.