Editing Herzing Issues: Faculty Instruction and Curriculum Design (section)

=== HU-044: Sherpath academic platform routinely teaches factually incorrect clinical nursing information; errors could cause patient harm if acted upon ===
{| class="wikitable" style="width:100%"
! style="width:14em" | Severity
| Critical
! Status
| CONFIRMED
|-
! Issue type
| Curriculum Deficiency / Patient Safety Risk
! Date added
| 2026-05-04
|-
! Owner
| colspan="3" | Dean of Prelicensure Nursing / Elsevier / Academic Affairs
|}
'''Finding.''' Per the tracker's evidence, the Sherpath academic platform routinely teaches factually incorrect clinical nursing information, and students identified errors that, if acted upon in clinical practice, could cause patient harm.

'''Evidence.''' Herzing MSNDE 2026 GroupMe (March 3, 2025): Student AQ stated that Sherpath was teaching incorrect information on a regular basis. Student X (Feb 7, 2025) identified at least one question where the correct answer was clearly wrong based on clinical logic. Multiple students across cohorts noted the platform was inadequate preparation for HESI. Source Group: multiple GroupMe archives, Herzing Nursing 2027; Herzing MSNDE 2026 (Jan to Jun 2025); Health Assessment NSG121 (Jan to Apr 2025); Herzing ProctorU Students; Herzing MSN-PNP Summer 2025.

'''Reported statement.''' According to the tracker, Student AQ said that Sherpath teaches incorrect information regularly and warned that a student who does not recognize an error could carry it forward into practice and make a dangerous mistake as a nurse, and separately described a gap between what the platform teaches and what the HESI exams actually ask.

'''Standards.''' ACEN Standard 4: course content must be current, evidence based, and accurate. ACEN Standard 5: student learning outcomes must reflect competence in safe nursing practice. NCSBN standards for nursing education require that didactic content be accurate and clinically defensible. Elsevier has a contractual obligation to provide accurate educational content.

'''Impact.''' Students who learn incorrect clinical content from Sherpath and apply it in patient care settings could cause direct patient harm. The institution's reliance on Sherpath as the primary educational resource without institutional correction of inaccuracies represents a systemic curriculum and patient safety failure.

'''Notes.''' Student AQ left the program specifically citing Sherpath inaccuracies as a primary reason, transferring to St. Louis University's MSN direct entry program. See also {{HU|HU-041}} (Sherpath platform failures).

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