A call to action: Building evidence for use of simulation in nurse practitioner education

Abstract

Leaders from national nursing organizations, nursing schools, and health care simulation vendors convened in early 2019 to discuss simulation in nurse practitioner (NP) education. Nurse practitioner clinical education needs a more standardized, efficient, and sustainable model to prepare NPs to provide quality care in complex health care systems. Currently, a major shortage of clinical sites and preceptors to educate students creates challenges for NP programs and nursing faculty. One strategy used by nursing programs to overcome this challenge is using simulation to provide clinical training for NP students in a safe, controlled environment. There remains, however, a lack of evidence linking these simulation experiences with clinical skills acquisition and program outcomes. Implementing competency-based education through standardized simulations has the potential to demonstrate quality, safety, and accountability across NP education programs. Ultimately, the expansion and acceptance of simulation hours in NP education is dependent on strong and favorable evidence from rigorous, high-quality studies.

Addressing telehealth education in a family nurse practitioner program through simulation-based learning

“…Simulation is an educational pedagogy that is widely used in NP education (Nye et al, 2019). In addition, simulation can be used in conjunction with traditional face-to-face clinical experiences as an adjuvant learning modality (Jeffries et al, 2019). There is minimal research that explores whether simulation education improves NP students' clinical performance (Fey & Kardong-Edgren, 2017; Nye et al, 2019).…”

Using Simulation to Assess Nurse Practitioner Education

“…With a movement toward competency-based education, leaders in nurse practitioner (NP) education have called for more discussion and evidence on the use of simulation as a method of evaluating clinical competencies (Jeffries et al, 2019). Currently, there is no standardized approach to how nursing education evaluates the competency of students.…”

Neonatal Fragile Skin

“…Nurse practitioner (NP) faculty search for enjoyable and convenient ways to engage advanced practice nursing students in a supportive learning environment. Simulation activities motivate and engage students in active learning 5. It is important for NP students to apply and further develop their knowledge with experiential learning tasks.…”