Development of entrustable professional activities for advanced practice nurses education.

Area of Science:

• Nursing Education
• Healthcare Professional Development
• Competency-Based Education

Background:

• Entrustable Professional Activity (EPA) frameworks are increasingly adopted in healthcare education.
• A gap exists in specific EPA development for graduate nursing education to enhance patient safety and care quality.
• This study addresses the need for tailored EPAs in advanced practice nursing.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe a four-stage approach for developing and pilot testing core EPAs for advanced practice nurse (APN) education.
• To establish a foundational set of EPAs for APN training.
• To gather stakeholder feedback on the usability and effectiveness of the developed EPAs.

Main Methods:

• A four-stage development process: team formation, conceptual framework development, EPA identification/review, and pilot testing.
• Post-pilot surveys and feedback collection from EPA developers, APN preceptors, and interns.
• Exploration of stakeholder perceptions and experiences with the piloted EPAs.

Main Results:

• A framework of nine core EPAs for APN education was successfully developed.
• Key EPAs include patient assessment, care management, procedural skills, urgent care recognition, care transitions, pharmacologic management, health promotion, quality improvement, and professional development.
• Pilot testing revealed generally positive stakeholder attitudes towards the EPAs.

Conclusions:

• The developed core APN EPAs provide a structured approach to graduate nursing education.
• Stakeholder feedback indicates a positive reception, but further research is required.
• Additional investigation into the psychometric properties of assessment tools and large-scale effectiveness evaluation is recommended before widespread implementation.