PACE ACNP: A DNP-PhD Collaborative Model to Address Acute Care and Trauma Disparities

Background:

Managing the care of the acute and critically ill is complex and costly, especially given recent restrictions on medical resident work hours and new limitations on Medicare reimbursement protocols.  Medicare also reduced its reimbursement for certain events it considers “hospital acquired”. This decision was a direct result of the National Quality Forum (NQF) 28 Serious Reportable Events list, which includes common complications such as surgical site infections, deep vein thrombosis, and poor glycemic control. According to the IOM and others, quality of care-related events are responsible for $29 billion in healthcare costs.   Evidence supports that using such models as advanced practice nurses (APNs) to coordinate continuity of care and help manage chronically critically ill patients not only results in high satisfaction of care but reduces the cost of care after discharge from the hospital without increasing an organization’s own costs of delivering care

Nurse Practitioner Education Initiative: Through HRSA funding (Division of Advanced Nursing Education), the School of Nursing at the College recently developed a Program for Accelerated Continuing Education (PACE) Acute Care Nurse Practitioner (ACNP).  The two-semester online course was designed for individuals with APN backgrounds who are doctoral prepared or in the progress.  This innovative approach included sampling 138 healthcare providers at a Level I Trauma Center to evaluate beliefs associated with the use of ACNPs as well as the effectiveness of a DNP-PhD partnership to optimize acute care outcomes.

Implications for Nurse Practitioner Education:  Today's complex healthcare environment requires the highest level of scientific knowledge and practice expertise, a DNP-PhD collaborative partnership can be a valuable initiative to help assure high quality patient outcomes.  The PACE ACNP initiative not only can advance nursing education, improve healthcare outcomes and promote research but increase the ACNP faculty workforce.