Thinking Outside the Box: Are We Ready for Teleprecepting to Expand Training and Practice Venues?

A significant challenge related to nurse practitioner (NP) training is the shortage of clinical sites with qualified faculty to precept NP interns. The problem is compounded in rural communities with provider shortages, restricting their opportunities to train (and potentially recruit) new APRNs. Consequently, these underserved communities have difficulty accessing specialty providers, such as Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioners (PMHNPs). Combined with geographic distance from urban communities and generally lower pay, many rural and/or remote communities struggle with the disparity in contrast to more populated regions. A needs assessment of an underserved county with poor access to psychiatric services suggests that contracted telepsychiatry was costly and failed to address the long-term dearth of local psychiatric providers. Stakeholders reported that local RNs (and possibly FNPs) were employed by the local hospital and that a subgroup may have aptitude and interest in psychiatry if a university program and preceptors were available. Collaborating with an urban PMHNP program, televideo technology for clinical training and preceptor development offers a solution to the dearth of preceptors. A pilot intervention will use teleprecepting aimed at establishing best practice guidelines for implementation of this novel approach to expanding the clinical training and capacity in rural and under-served communities.