Challenges and Innovative Solutions for On-line Acute Care Nurse Practitioner Student Clinical Placements

Guided clinical learning opportunities are essential to nurse practitioner education. Securing optimal regional clinical placement opportunities for students is an on-going challenge for on-campus graduate nursing programs. As nurse practitioner programs expand to the on-line environment, faculty are confronted with the challenge of securing quality clinical placements for students nationwide and then objectively evaluating the site, preceptor and student, from a distance. 

As the Acute Care Nurse Practitioner program at the School of Nursing and Health Studies expanded to include on-line cohorts, the Acute Care faculty encountered many obstacles, leading to the development of innovative strategies to successfully meet these unique challenges.

This presentation will highlight clinical placement challenges specific to on-line and distance nurse practitioner education. It will outline strategies for identifying quality clinical sites from a distance, for optimally matching students with preceptors and for evaluating the clinical site, the preceptor and the student using an innovative combination of methods.

Content Outline:

I.                 Identifying Clinical Placement Sites

                       a. Challenges of nationwide placement

                                       i.     State specific regulations

                                       ii.     Recommended timelines

                                      iii.     Resources

II.                 Evaluation Strategies

                       a. Clinical Faculty Advisor

                                        i.     Overview of role

                                        ii.     Communication methods

                                       iii.     Tools for assessing clinical sites

                                       iv.     Tools for assessing preceptors

                      b. Innovative Strategies for Evaluating Students

                                        i.     Evaluation of clinical skills from a distance

                                       ii.     Use of Standardized Patients

                                      iii. High Fidelity Simulation