Evaluation of an Advanced Practice Provider Onboarding and Development Program

To evaluate the impact of implementing a comprehensive secondary onboarding and development program within a hospital medicine group at a large tertiary academic medical institution.

This was a mixed-methods study with physician and advanced practice providers (APPs) at an academic medical institution.

For quantitative methods, improvement in competencies was determined using a pre-and posttest for APPs and pre- and postevaluation scores from collaborating physicians. APPs also participated in a pre- and post-self-assessment. For qualitative methods, experiences in the secondary onbo.arding and development program were assessed using semistructured interviews.

For quantitative results, there were a total of 25 APPs who completed the pre- and posttest and were evaluated by at least 9 physicians. The average pretest score for APPs was 71.7% and the average posttest score was 83.0%. The average score for physicians' evaluations of APPs was 4.24/5 and increased to 4.38/5 in the postprogram evaluations. The average score for APP self-assessment pretraining was 3.52/5 and after the 12-month onboarding training, average scores increased to 3.84/5. For qualitative results, 4 APPs and 6 physicians were interviewed. Three of the APPs reported having more confidence in treating patients, whereas 1 APP viewed the program as a refresher course. All of the APPs mentioned that they would recommend the program to other APPs. Physicians reported that the program was beneficial in standardizing the care provided among the different types of APPs (physician assistants and nurse practitioners). All of the physicians also would recommend the program to other physicians and APPs.