In response to an existing need in the nursing education literature, this paper suggests a comprehensive strategy for applying instructional design procedures to the staff development of in-hospital nursing personnel. Although instructional design themes are present in the nursing education literature, each entry can be characterized as focusing on either (1) a general discussion of design considerations but void of illustrative prototype instructional materials, or (2) a specific but singular feature of the design process--most frequently, the measurement and evaluation phase. This paper presents the following: (1) generic models for systematically designing nursing-oriented instruction at three levels of specificity--namely, the program syllabus or macro level, the course syllabus or intermediate level, and the instructional unit or micro level; and (2) prototype instructional materials pertaining to a unit on the physical assessment of the neonate. These generic models and prototype materials are considered in the context of an actual calendar-year program for nursing staff development currently being implemented at Children's Hospital in New Orleans. The program includes a course on neonatal critical care and the instructional materials included in this paper. It is anticipated that parallel or comparable staff development programs in nursing and other health sciences, comprised of appropriate courses and their corresponding units, might be modeled on those developed for Children's Hospital. (Author/KC)