Development and Evaluation of Precision Health Competencies.

Area of Science:

• Nursing Practice
• Precision Health
• Competency Development

Background:

• Precision health (PH) aims to tailor healthcare to individual variability.
• Integrating PH into nursing requires defined competencies.
• The American Nurses Association (ANA) formed a workgroup to address this need.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop precision health (PH) competencies for nursing.
• To evaluate the comprehensiveness and applicability of these competencies in nursing practice.

Main Methods:

• A multi-year workgroup process, including literature review, developed initial PH competencies.
• A modified e-Delphi technique with expert review was used for consensus building.
• A four-point Likert scale survey assessed agreement on competency statements, with an 80% concordance threshold.

Main Results:

• Consensus was reached on six PH domains, six competency statements, and 43 sub-competency statements.
• Forty experts reviewed and revised the competencies, with a majority achieving favorable agreement.
• Two rounds of evaluation showed a typical pattern of convergence for the competency statements.

Conclusions:

• Developing PH competencies is a critical initial step for integrating PH into nursing.
• These competencies will guide nursing curricula, clinical guidelines, and role expectations.
• This work facilitates future interprofessional initiatives and research on PH's impact on patient outcomes and technology integration.