Approach to advanced practice nursing student clinical during COVID‐19

• Published in: Nursing open Vol. 10; no. 3; pp. 1931 - 1935
• Main Authors: McIltrot, Kimberly, Russell, Nancy G., Renda, Susan, Fingerhood, Marianne
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01.03.2023; John Wiley and Sons Inc; Wiley
• Subjects: Advanced Practice Nursing; Algorithms; Case management; COVID-19; Education; Education, Nursing, Baccalaureate; Education, Nursing, Graduate; Health care access; Humans; Leadership; Learning; Nurse Education Report; Nurse practitioners; Nursing schools; Pandemics; Patients; Personal protective equipment; Students; Telemedicine; United States > US
• ISSN: 2054-1058; 2054-1058
• DOI: 10.1002/nop2.1404

While many states adopted policies that allow for simulation or other experiences to replace direct clinical hours in pre-licensure nursing programmes during COVID-19 (National Council of State Boards of Nursing, 2020), AP nursing education regulations continue to require a minimum of 500 supervised direct patient clinical care hours for nurse practitioner (NP) students to meet graduation and certification requirements (National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties [NONPF], 2020). [...]NP programmes must seek novel ways to maximize the use of available resources for students to earn supervised direct patient clinical care hours during this ongoing global health crisis. [...]many AP clinical sites (66 of the 79) restricted student access for a variety of reasons, including a lack of personal protective equipment (PPE), increased workload of preceptors, staffing shortages and concerns about social distancing required for staff and student safety. Another opportunity allowed students to assist with a phone line at a local health centre where they spoke with low income, mostly uninsured patients about symptoms, emotional distress about community infections, and how to remain healthy during the pandemic. Other considerations for student learning include maintenance of privacy and standard of care in virtual visits, awareness of acceptable HIPAA-compliant platforms, how to educate patients on the use of technology and to join with preceptors as they also expand their learning of telehealth.