Utilizing technology effectively: Developing complementary strategies to support clinical training for advanced practice nurse learners

Pediatric Nurse Practitioner (PNP) and Acute Care Pediatric Nurse Practitioner (ACPNP) learners share many goals in their competency-based education and training. Common foundational coursework in assessment, physiology, pathophysiology, pharmacology, evidence-based practice and applied research provides supportive content for articulation of advanced practice roles. Common foundational skills experiences support broad based preparation in assessment, planning and evaluation of care. Meaningful threads from coursework are carried throughout the program of study to supplement clinical experiences, including use of technology resources such as an online management system (LMS): Moodle ™. Judiciously planned simulation-based experiences, including motivational interviewing and examination technique practice sessions with manikins and standardized patients provide opportunities for low-stakes skill building. Nurse Practitioner tracking software (e.g. Typhon NPST©) enables consistent and timely recording, tracking and evaluation of clinical experiences to simplify faculty oversight and support remediation as necessary.

However PNP and ACPNP learners ultimately diverge in their specialty-specific competencies and roles, and hence learning expectations and experiences. ACPNP learners who specialize in care of clients across the continuum of acute illness to convalescence require exposure to experiences that will develop their skill, confidence and self-efficacy in effective care delivery across that care continuum. To overcome limitations posed by access to sufficiently varied acute care experiences, especially for low-frequency conditions or access to clinical mentors, additional complementary simulation-based experiences were developed. This presentation will showcase a novel online simulation-based strategy developed within the Moodle™ LMS, Virtual PICU, that was designed to support ACPNP skill building and self-efficacy.