Teaching Health Assessment to Pediatric Nurse Practitioners: A Quality Improvement Project

Advanced practice nursing education is always transforming. The physical assessment course within the pediatric nurse practitioner (PNP) program is arguably the most critical and fundamental course. This quality improvement project determined there was a perceived lack of sufficient pediatric content in the Advanced Health Assessment class at a Midwestern university. A survey question asked graduate students if they felt prepared for their pediatric clinical rotations with the assessment skills learned in the Advanced Health Assessment course at this university. More than half, 62.5%, of the students that responded to the survey were neutral or did not feel prepared for their clinical rotations. An infant assessment instructional video was created for pediatric nurse practitioner students, to provide the students with more pediatric assessment instruction, prior to their clinical rotations. The video was provided to nine PNP students. A survey was then given to the nine students after they watched the video with a 100% participation rate. Based on the survey results, the infant video created was adequate at providing specific infant assessment education while also maintaining safe social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic