Collegiate Homecoming: An Innovative Campus Based Clinical Competency Evaluation of NP Students

Purpose: It is critical for beginning advance practice nurses to demonstrate safe and effective care.  Although each program is driven by criteria for preparing and evaluating nurse practitioner students by credentialing agencies, operationalization of the evaluation process varies widely across programs nationwide.  Due to a number of factors including a shortage of nurse practitioner clinical faculty, increase in the number of students, and an increase in the number of distance learning students, an innovative approach for clinical evaluation of nurse practitioner students was developed.  Integration of a Clinical Competency Evaluation (CCE) on site evaluation using standardized patients with observed standardize clinical evaluations (OSCE’s) and a standardized patient diagnostic case was piloted with Adult-Gerontology Primary Care and Family concentrations.

Review of Literature: Review of the literature within CINAHL focused on literature related to clinical evaluation of nurse practitioner students and nursing faculty shortage and preparation.  As well, literature related to the credentialing agencies recommendations for clinical evaluation was reviewed to ensure current compliance.   Current literature supports development of campus based OSCE for nurse practitioner students as an innovative method to incorporate into the process of clinical evaluation.

Summary: Review of the outcomes from the initial cohort of students participating in the CCE for their clinical evaluation, identified areas for future improvement in both didactic and clinical education.  As well, potential limitations to success of the CCE were the timing of the evaluation, lack of prior experience with standardized patient interactions, and overestimation of student’s ability to assess and diagnose highly complex patient scenarios during the second clinical experience. Utilization of the CCE identified a need for increased integration of simulation experiences throughout the graduate program with not only summative, but also formative feedback to enhance learning experience and mastery of competencies.