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AACN
TO STUDY COSTS AND BENEFITS OF ADVANCED PRACTICE NURSE TRAINING
IN OUTPATIENT SETTINGS
Grant
by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Supports Analysis of Training
Costs to
Clinical Facilities
WASHINGTON,
DC, January 15, 1999 -- The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
(RWJF) has awarded a grant of $50,000 to the American Association
of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) to support a study to detail
the costs and benefits to outpatient clinical sites that participate
in training nurse practitioners and other advanced practice
nurses.
AACN’s development
of methodology and other research tools will build upon a
recent comprehensive review that delineated the costs to teaching
and non-teaching ambulatory sites for training primary care
practitioners. Although that 1997 study, conducted for
the federal Bureau of Health Professions by Northeastern University
researcher James R. Boex and colleagues, gathered some data
on nurse practitioner training, it focused primarily on medical
education. The RWJF grant will support AACN’s analysis
of the 1997 study and of adapting that study’s methodology
to gather data on the costs and benefits of advanced practice
nurse (APN) education in outpatient facilities.
Based in Princeton,
NJ, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is the nation’s
largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to health and health
care.
“Completion of this
important project will allow AACN to establish a model framework
for gathering data to guide the policy considerations of HMOs,
community health centers, and other clinical sites.
Such facilities are facing heightened pressure to strengthen
their educational infrastructures as health care continues
to shift from hospitals to more community-based, ambulatory
care,” says AACN President Andrea R. Lindell, DNSc, RN.
“This grant is a critical first step towards development
of up-to-date data on costs and benefits of graduate nurse
training that can be compared to similar studies of physician
and physician assistant education.”
At the same time that
advanced practice nurses such as nurse practitioners and certified
nurse-midwives are expanding access to needed primary care,
a convergence of factors is squeezing access to community-based
clinical education sites. In particular, growing concern
about productivity in managed care settings has prompted much
of the recent activity in assessing the costs of clinical
training for health professionals. Many nursing schools
report increased difficulty with access to clinical facilities
that cite productivity pressures as a prime reason for accepting
fewer graduate students for on-site training. Some schools
report having to search beyond their geographic regions to
find available clinical sites, while others report that sites
are less willing to commit to long-term agreements regarding
the presence of advanced practice nursing students.
“Our ability to develop
effective public policy to address this growing problem is
limited by the lack of information on the economic costs and
benefits of clinical education,” Dr. Lindell explains.
“If we are to produce a sufficient APN supply to meet
health care needs in communities, it is essential that we
have a well-founded basis from which to negotiate to expand
and retain training sites in the managed care system.
The AACN project will analyze
the model, educational and cost analyses, and other components
of the study by Boex and colleagues, identify what they reveal
about current costs of clinical training of advanced practice
nurses, and recommend ways to adapt the instrument to a similar
study of graduate nursing education. Later stages of
the project, with additional support to be sought from other
sources, will allow a full-scale study using the redesigned
methodology in the field.
The analysis, which is expected
to be completed within seven months, will be coordinated by
Patricia Meservey, special assistant to the president of Northeastern
University, and a major participant in the study by Boex and
colleagues. From 1991-1997, she served as executive director
of the universitys Center for Community Health Education,
Research, and Service, and formerly held posts as interim
dean, acting chair, and assistant professor in the School
of Nursing at Boston University.
An advisory committee,
including investigators from the Boex et al. study as well
as leaders in nursing practice and education, will provide
expert input to guide the projects development of research
tools and recommend future research directions.
The American Association of
Colleges of Nursing is the national voice for university and
four-year-college education programs in nursing. Representing
more than 570 member schools of nursing at public and private
institutions nationwide, AACN's educational, research, governmental
advocacy, data collection, publications, and other programs
work to establish quality standards for bachelor's- and graduate-degree
nursing education, assist deans and directors to implement
those standards, influence the nursing profession to improve
health care, and promote public support of baccalaureate and
graduate nursing education, research, and practice. See http://www.aacn.nche.edu.
CONTACT:
Robert Rosseter
(202) 463-6930, x231
rrosseter@aacn.nche.edu
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