Cost-Effective Virtual Clinical Site Visits for Nurse Practitioner Students

Area of Science:

• Nursing Education
• Distance Learning
• Healthcare Technology

Background:

• Clinical site visits (CSVs) are essential for evaluating nurse practitioner (NP) student progress.
• Assessing long-distance NP students presents challenges for faculty workload and effective evaluation.
• A project utilized FaceTime, a videoconferencing tool, for remote CSVs to address these challenges.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of using FaceTime for remote clinical site visits for NP students.
• To assess the impact of this technology on faculty workload and resource utilization.
• To determine the acceptability and ease of use of FaceTime CSVs among faculty, preceptors, and students.

Main Methods:

• School of nursing faculty conducted CSVs using FaceTime for real-time observation of NP student-patient encounters.
• Faculty completed student, site, and preceptor evaluations post-visit.
• Surveys were administered to faculty, preceptors, and students to gauge their experience with the iPad-based visits.

Main Results:

• FaceTime CSVs provided sufficient information for faculty to complete all required evaluations.
• The iPad-based visits were found to be easy to use.
• All stakeholders, including faculty, preceptors, and students, found the FaceTime CSVs acceptable.

Conclusions:

• Implementing FaceTime for CSVs offers a viable solution for assessing remote NP students.
• This approach significantly reduced faculty travel time.
• The use of FaceTime for CSVs resulted in decreased program resource consumption.