LEAD 6173 Module 5 Global Partnership Plan Example

A Partnership, Not a Pipeline: A Plan for a Houston Health System to Share the Benefits of Nurse Recruitment With a Provincial Nursing School in the Philippines

Student Name

American College of Education

LEAD6173: Global Perspectives

Module 5 Assignment

Instructor Name

November 9, 2026

Introduction

Four modules of this course examined the international recruitment of nurses by a composite Houston health system: what global citizenship asks of the leader directing it, how Philippine and American nurse preparation differ, how culturally responsive practice must run in several directions and how migration produces gains and losses at both ends. Module 4 concluded that a single employer can share the benefits of recruitment with the places nurses come from. This paper plans how. It proposes a five-year partnership between my health system and a nursing school in a Philippine province that loses many of its graduates abroad.

Starting From Partnership

Leffers and Mitchell (2011) developed a conceptual model of partnership and sustainability in global health nursing from interviews with 13 experienced global health nurses. Its themes include engagement, mutual goal setting, cultural bridging, collaboration, capacity building, leadership, ownership and sustainability, and the model holds that engagement and partnership must come before any planning or intervention if the result is to last. That principle changes how this plan is written. The health system will not arrive with a program; it will begin with a period of engagement in which the school's leaders define what they need, and the program elements described below are proposals for that conversation, not a finished design.

Choosing a Partner

The partner school should be one that the health system's recruitment actually affects. An analysis of the system's recruits over five years shows that nearly a fifth graduated from schools in one region of the Visayas, several from a single provincial college with a strong licensure record and a teaching hospital that loses many of its nurses within three years. That school, which the plan calls the partner college, is the natural candidate. Two recruited nurses who graduated from it have offered to make the first introductions, which follows the model's emphasis on cultural bridging through people with ties to both sides. The choice will be confirmed only after the college's leaders have heard what the partnership might involve and decided they want it; a partner that feels selected rather than consulted is unlikely to own the work.

Mutual Goals

The first year will be devoted to engagement: two visits by health system leaders, two virtual planning sessions with the partner college's dean and faculty and a written statement of mutual goals. Possible goals, to be tested in that conversation, include stronger faculty in clinical specialties where the college struggles to recruit; scholarships that keep talented students from poorer families in school; support for the college's teaching hospital in retaining experienced nurses; and, for the health system, a recruitment relationship that is transparent and that the college regards as fair. The test of mutual goals is simple: the partner should be able to say what it gains in its own words, not in ours.

Proposed Program Elements

Four elements will be proposed for discussion. First, scholarships: ten full scholarships a year for students with financial need, with no obligation to work for the health system, so that the scholarships build the Philippine workforce rather than a private pipeline. Second, faculty development: an annual exchange in which two partner college faculty spend a month in Houston hospitals and units, and two health system educators teach at the college for a month. Third, teaching leave: recruited nurses who complete two years with the system may apply for a paid three-month leave to teach at the college or its teaching hospital, a small form of circular movement. Fourth, ethical recruitment commitments: the health system will use only agencies that charge nurses no fees, will cap any repayment clause at documented costs and will not recruit the college's faculty or its teaching hospital's charge nurses. Each element will be revised, dropped or replaced according to what the college's leaders say in the engagement year.

Grounding the Plan in the International Code

The plan's recruitment commitments follow the principles of the international code of practice on recruiting health personnel, which asks recruiters to be ethical and transparent, to treat migrant workers equally and to pursue arrangements that benefit both source and destination countries (World Health Organization, 2010). The plan also reflects the recommendation in the Philippine country case study that some of migration's gains flow back to the colleges and hospitals where emigrating nurses learned their trade, through collaboration between sending and receiving parties (Lorenzo et al., 2007).

Risks to the Partnership

Three risks could undermine the partnership. The first is that it becomes a recruitment channel in disguise, with scholarship recipients and exchange faculty steered toward jobs in Houston; the plan guards against this by placing no work obligation on scholarships and by committing not to recruit the college's faculty. The second is dependency: if the college comes to rely on the health system's money and the system later cuts its budget, the partnership could leave the college worse off; the memorandum will therefore commit funding in three-year terms with a year's notice before any reduction. The third is imbalance in voice. Partners from wealthy institutions tend to dominate meetings, choose agendas and define success. Equal membership on the steering committee helps, but the habits matter more: meetings will be chaired alternately by each partner, agendas will be set jointly and the college's assessment will be reported first at each annual review.

Governance

A joint steering committee with equal membership from the health system and the partner college will meet quarterly by video and once a year in person, alternating between Houston and the province. Decisions about scholarships and faculty exchange will rest with the college; decisions about recruitment commitments will rest with the health system but be reported to the committee. A written memorandum of understanding will describe goals, commitments and how either party may end the partnership.

Budget and Evaluation

The proposed annual cost is about $180,000: scholarships, $60,000; faculty exchange travel and stipends, $55,000; teaching leave salaries for up to three nurses, $50,000; and coordination, $15,000. The amount is less than a tenth of the system's annual international recruitment spending. Evaluation will track scholarship recipients' graduation and licensure, partner college faculty retention, the number of teaching leaves taken, recruited nurses' views of the partnership and, most important, the partner college's own assessment each year of whether the partnership is meeting its goals. Results will be shared with both institutions' boards each year, and the partner college will be free to publish its own account of the partnership, good or bad, without the health system's review.

Conclusion

Here the course's analysis becomes a relationship. It begins with engagement rather than a program, gives the partner college control over the elements that affect it most, ties the health system's recruitment to ethical commitments and spends a small share of recruitment money building capacity where nurses are trained. Nurses will keep leaving the province by choice, and the plan does not pretend otherwise, but it can make the health system a partner in the province rather than only a destination for its nurses.

References

Leffers, J., & Mitchell, E. (2011). Conceptual model for partnership and sustainability in global health. Public Health Nursing, 28(1), 91-102. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1525-1446.2010.00892.x

Lorenzo, F. M. E., Galvez-Tan, J., Icamina, K., & Javier, L. (2007). Nurse migration from a source country perspective: Philippine country case study. Health Services Research, 42(3p2), 1406-1418. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6773.2007.00716.x

World Health Organization. (2010). WHO global code of practice on the international recruitment of health personnel. https://iris.who.int/handle/10665/3090