Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Projects

Access Control

Open Access

Degree Program

Doctor of Nursing Practice

Degree Track

Post Master's DNP Completion

Year Degree Awarded

2020

DOI

https://doi.org/10.7275/17469357

Month Degree Awarded

May

Keywords

nurse practitioner residency, nurse practitioner fellowship, post-graduate nurse practitioner training

Advisor

Dr. Jean E. DeMartinis, PhD, FNP-BC

DNP Project Chair

Dr. Jean E. DeMartinis, PhD, FNP-BC

Abstract

Background: As the role of nurse practitioners (NPs) evolves and educational approaches to training NPs are modified to accommodate these changes, a gap in adequate training for many newly graduated nurse practitioners exists. Additional post-graduate supervised training is needed to ensure confidence and competence of new providers. Such programs are not currently available at small, outpatient settings in the United States. Purpose: The purpose of this Quality Improvement (QI) DNP project was to evaluate the impact of a newlylaunched primary care nurse practitioner residency program on a selected new NP graduate (hereafter called the ‘resident’) at an independent, outpatient, primary care office. Methods: This DNP student incorporated a QI framework with an educational evaluation design, using a Likert-scale questionnaire. Benner’s novice-to-expert framework and the impostor phenomenon often experienced during this transition as originally outlined by Clance and Imes were used to examine the results. The questionnaire was administered to the resident at 3- and 6- month intervals. Informal discussions and journaling were also evaluated to construct a qualitative evaluation of the resident’s experience. Results/Discussion: The questionnaire and qualitative discussions/journaling results revealed that the new resident expressed and exhibited an increase in confidence and competence over time during the first 6 months of the newly launched NP residency program. The resident, ultimately, also reported increased satisfaction in her role as she progressed through Benner’s framework, despite experiencing the impostor phenomenon. The residency was developed for a specific primary care practice site which received no outside funding, yet the practice yielded a net positive financial return on investment (ROI) at the 6-month mark of the program. These results reflect the efficacy of such a program for new NPs.

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Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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