Development and Accreditation of an Advanced Practice Provider Fellowship at an Acute Care Pediatric Hospital

• Published in: Journal for nurse practitioners Vol. 20; no. 3; p. 104916
• Main Authors: Crogan, Johannah H., Smith, Ronna K., Moore, Emily F.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Philadelphia Elsevier Inc 01.03.2024; Elsevier Limited
• Subjects: Accreditation; Acute services; advanced practice; Clinical decision making; Clinical medicine; Consortia; Core curriculum; Curricula; Curriculum development; Didacticism; Educational programs; Employment; Feedback; fellowship; Financial support; Graduate studies; Health education; Hiring; Hospital systems; Hospitals; Knowledge; Nurse practitioners; Orientations; Patients; pediatric acute care; Pediatrics; Physician assistants; Preceptors; Productivity; retention; Scholarships & fellowships; Skills; Teams; transition to practice; pediatric acute care; accreditation; transition to practice; advanced practice; fellowship; retention
• ISSN: 1555-4155; 1878-058X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.nurpra.2023.104916

Advanced practice providers (APPs) are essential to the care of patients in a complex health care system. There are a multitude of graduate education programs available for advanced practice in the field of pediatrics. Newly graduated APPs often have a long lead time to full productivity and limited exposure to subspecialties before practice entry. This requires onboarding and training to introductory advanced practice that is often time-consuming and not satisfying to preceptors. Additionally, this model forces a newly hired APP in the field of pediatrics to choose a subspecialty without certainty of clinical practice within the environment to which one is committing. Intermediary training between graduation and employment through an APP fellowship can help alleviate these issues, bridging the gap to full functioning provider. To describe the successful implementation of a postgraduate training program for APPs at an acute care pediatric hospital including curriculum development, training structure, financial support, and accreditation. This model can be adopted to prepare new APPs to work within specific institutional systems and provide subspecialty care in a pediatric acute care setting. This training is most effective outside of academia. The development of an APP fellowship program within a pediatric acute care organization has created an onboarding program that meets both the learning needs of the APPs and the expectations of the institution to hire and retain well-trained providers. The creation and accreditation of an advanced practice fellowship has also increased the satisfaction of both APPs and hiring managers. •Accreditation standards can be used as a guide in implementation of a pediatric acute care advanced practice provider (APP) fellowship.•An advanced practice fellowship can improve a new graduate’s transition into the provider role.•Advanced practice fellowships offer the opportunity to expose new providers to multiple subspecialties prior to committing to 1 practice area.•Use of an advanced practice fellowship demonstrated satisfaction of front-line APPs and hiring managers.