Enhancing the nurse practitioner curriculum to improve telehealth competency.

ABSTRACT: Telehealth improves access to health care and has seen rapid expansion in recent years. Nurse practitioner (NP) students are expected to be able to use telehealth to provide health care on graduation; however, many programs of study do not include telehealth in the academic preparation of students. As a result, students feel unprepared to use telehealth to provide care to patients. To meet this need, a land-grant institution developed evidence-based competencies and curriculum to educate NP students in the area of telehealth. Curriculum included presentations, assignments, and simulation in the area of telehealth. Participants included 156 female and 15 male family nurse practitioner (FNP) students. Using a Likert scale from 1 (very unprepared) to 4 (very prepared), students indicated their knowledge and skill level for each telehealth competency area before and after the content delivery. Each competency demonstrated a significant increase in FNP student confidence and ability when comparing the pretest and posttest mean (p = .000). Outcomes of the project demonstrated the importance of including telehealth concepts into the curriculum for NP students to meet the needs and expectations of health care systems.