DFW and Texas hospital onboarding for UTA students
Hospitals add a layer of their own on top of UTA clearance: an orientation, an affiliation check, an application window. In North Texas much of it runs through the DFW Hospital Council Foundation. Here is what each system's pages say, marked by how firm the source is.
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The DFW Hospital Council Foundation's placement system
The DFW Hospital Council Foundation (DFWHCF) coordinates the Centralized Clinical Placement System, known as CCPS, for schools and hospitals in North and Central Texas. Hospitals post open clinical spots, schools request them, and hospitals approve or propose something else, on a fixed Fall, Spring and Summer calendar.
It is a school-to-hospital tool. A school must be a Texas Board of Nursing approved program and hold affiliation agreements with the hospitals it requests. The Foundation's July 2024 user list includes the University of Texas at Arlington among about 30 schools, and its hospital users include many Baylor Scott & White and Texas Health Resources hospitals, Children's Health, Methodist Dallas Medical Center, Parkland and UT Southwestern.
Unconfirmed: whether CCPS handles individual NP preceptorships. The Foundation describes nursing and allied health placements in general. Children's Health sends undergraduate and MSN Education requests through it, but no source says NP or APRN rotations go that way.
The standard hospital student orientation
The North Texas Nursing Resource Center and DFWHCF created a standard hospital orientation for students on clinical rotations. Its checklist covers liability insurance, healthcare-provider CPR, hepatitis B, MMR, Tdap, varicella and influenza vaccines, a TB test, a drug screen and a criminal background check. It notes that "Some hospitals require additional immunizations," and each school documents completion to the hospitals.
The version we could read is marked updated November 2018 and is hosted on a UTA College of Business page. UTA's BSN clearance requires the DFW Hospital Council Standard Student Clinical Orientation and Post-test every year. UTA's public graduate pages do not list it, but UT Southwestern's attestation letter for APRN students includes DFWHC Orientation, so expect it there.
One gap: the Foundation's Community Standards document, the regional standard UTA's undergraduate background check is built to meet, could not be found in a current copy.
ACEMAPP and other regional systems
ACEMAPP describes itself as a platform that connects schools, clinical sites and partners for education, compliance and recruitment. We found no page confirming that any of the Texas systems on this page uses it, and none of UTA's graduate nursing sources mention it. If a site tells you it uses ACEMAPP, ask your clinical coordinator how UTA handles that before you register for anything.
Other regions have their own arrangements. In Austin, the Central Texas Healthcare Partnership, run by Workforce Solutions Capital Area, offers schools subscriptions to its clinical placement software, and nursing students at Ascension and St. David's must finish the first four of Texas Tech's Bridging the Gaps modules before a rotation. In Houston, Houston Methodist requires the Texas Medical Center Standard Verification of General Orientation to Clinical Experiences Student Form.
UT Southwestern and Children's Health
Status labels on this page: confirmed means the system's own live page, read in September 2026; archived means only a Wayback Machine copy of the system's page could be read; third-party means another organization's page; snippet means a search-result excerpt only.
UT Southwestern (confirmed). Its Office of Advanced Practice Providers places APRN students through a REDCap form, the APP Student Precept Placement Request. Emailed requests are automatically denied, and you get one request per semester. Spring rotations are requested May 1 to August 31, Summer September 1 to December 31, and Fall January 1 to March 31.
At UT Southwestern, preference runs from UTSW employees, to employees of Children's, Parkland and Texas Health, then Texas public universities, private DFW schools and schools with an established agreement. You may name a preferred preceptor, but OAPP looks for available preceptors itself. The school's attestation letter is due 30 days before your start, and profile setup takes up to 30 days.
Children's Health (confirmed, with gaps). It uses a Master Student Affiliations Agreement with each school, and its list shows UTA with a biparty agreement running 2/20/2024 to 2/19/2032 and a triparty agreement with UTSW running 1/1/2025 to 12/31/2027. The hosting department submits requests through Ultimus at least three weeks ahead for non-employees; forms are not accepted from students. Its Primary Care Clinic no longer accepts NP students. The APRN hosting page returned an error, and its tri-party details come from a snippet only.
Other North Texas systems
| System | What the source says | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Baylor Scott & White | Online Nursing, PA and Allied Health orientation within 90 days before the rotation, repeated after more than 90 days away; applies at hospitals and clinics. No NP-specific page. | Confirmed |
| Texas Health Resources | Signed affiliation agreement required. The preceptor confirms your program is covered. For non-THR employees, new agreements need an SBAR signed by the entity president or CNO. UTA on its affiliation list: unverified. | Archived, April 2026 |
| Parkland Health | Does not place students directly; placement questions go through your school. CCPS hospital user. | Confirmed |
| JPS Health Network | Describes itself as a rotation site for nursing students and advanced practice nursing providers. No public APRN process. | Archived, February 2026 |
| Methodist Health System | Methodist Dallas Medical Center appears on the Foundation's CCPS hospital list. No public NP student page. | CCPS list only |
| Cook Children's | About 200 school agreements, each specific to college and degree program; new ones take about three months; applications due at least three weeks before the start. | Employee news post, January 2024 |
| Medical City Healthcare | Pages could not be read. NP policy, platform and affiliation rules unknown. | Unconfirmed |
Texas Health Resources states outright that it is the student's responsibility to contact the department at the location and secure a preceptor. If that location is also your workplace, see employer clinical sites for UTA's own limits.
Houston, San Antonio, Austin and East Texas
- Houston Methodist (confirmed, undated page): NP students apply by emailing a placement form, with deadlines of April 30 for Summer, July 15 for Fall and November 13 for Spring. It is not pursuing new affiliations and names five partner schools; UTA is not one of them.
- Texas Children's (confirmed): licensed students, including MSN and APRN students, need an Affiliation Agreement Inquiry at least six months before the desired start.
- Memorial Hermann (third-party): per a UTHealth Houston page, an affiliation agreement is required, only fully accredited programs qualify, and paperwork takes about two months once one exists.
- University Health, San Antonio (confirmed): UTA's College of Nursing is on its partner list. The school coordinator submits the request 30 to 45 days ahead and attests to orientation, health insurance, immunizations and a current flu vaccine.
- CHRISTUS Health (confirmed): every affiliation needs a signed Clinical Education Affiliation Agreement. Good Shepherd wants preceptor applications 60 days ahead; Trinity Mother Frances sets March 1, July 1 and November 1 deadlines and discourages cold calling.
- Ascension Seton (third-party): an Austin Community College page lists seven modules to complete every year.
- HCA Houston Healthcare (unconfirmed): pages could not be read, and nothing was found.
Before you ask a hospital-based preceptor
- Confirm the agreementUTA requires an affiliation agreement with the clinical agency, and several systems above will not start a student without one. Ask your clinical coordinator first; the affiliation agreement page explains why.
- Find the system's windowUT Southwestern decides months ahead, and Houston Methodist and CHRISTUS set fixed dates. Fit your placement timeline inside theirs.
- Respect who submitsChildren's Health takes requests only from the hosting department, and UT Southwestern denies emailed requests.
- Add onboarding to clearanceOrientation windows, attestation letters and flu rules sit on top of your UTA clearance items.
At a hospital system, the preceptor's yes is only the start. When a placement advisor searches for you, we weigh the system's rules up front: whether UTA has an agreement, whether the system is taking new students, and whether its window fits your course. Where a system is closed or slow, we look at practices that can say yes on your timeline. Tell us your track and county.
Questions UTA students ask
Does UTA use ACEMAPP?
None of the UTA graduate nursing sources we reviewed mention ACEMAPP; UTA's graduate clinical management system is Exxat. We also found no page confirming that any of the major Texas systems covered here uses ACEMAPP. If a site asks you to register on a platform, check with your clinical coordinator before you sign up.
Do I need the DFW Hospital Council orientation as a graduate student?
UTA's public graduate pages do not list it, though its BSN clearance requires it every year. UT Southwestern's attestation letter for APRN students includes DFWHC Orientation, so plan on it there. For other sites, check your Exxat compliance list and ask your clinical coordinator whether your site expects it.
Can I contact a hospital's student office myself?
Check the system's rules first. Children's Health accepts request forms only from the hosting department, UT Southwestern denies requests sent by email, and the Memorial Hermann process described on a UTHealth Houston page tells students not to contact clinics or providers directly. Texas Health Resources, by contrast, expects the student to secure a preceptor at the location.
Is UTA on Texas Health Resources' affiliation list?
A search-engine summary said THR's list, updated 3/1/2026, includes UT Arlington, but the list itself could not be opened when we checked, so that is unverified, and which UTA programs it covers is unknown. Ask your clinical coordinator to confirm before a THR preceptor starts any paperwork for you.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-23
We check these pages against UTA's own sources. UTA's current handbook and your course faculty have the final word.
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