The use of big data and data mining in nurse practitioner clinical education.

Nurse practitioner (NP) faculty have not fully used data collected in NP clinical education for data mining. With current advances in database technology including data storage and computing power, NP faculty have an opportunity to data mine enormous amounts of clinical data documented by NP students in electronic clinical management systems. The purpose of this project was to examine the use of big data and data mining from NP clinical education and to establish a foundation for competency-based education. Using a data mining knowledge discovery process, faculty are able to gain increased understanding of clinical practicum experiences to inform competency-based NP education and the use of entrusted professional activities for the future.

Building clinical education training capacity in nurse practitioner programs.

Building clinical education training capacity in nurse practitioner programs is critical to build the primary care workforce and to address the access to care problem in the country. Challenges related to obtaining clinical sites and qualified preceptors are well reported, but few practical solutions are presented. Clinical sites and qualified preceptors willing to serve can be found, but nurse practitioner faculty must remove obstacles and strengthen resources by discovering untapped capacity. Nurse practitioner faculty can design, implement, and test innovative clinical models to maximize clinical training capacity. Clinical capacity development in geriatrics and long-term care, convenience care, distance immersions, correctional nursing, occupational health, and through interprofessional collaborations and faculty practice partnerships can be expanded.

Diabetes: follow-up support for patients with uncontrolled diabetes.

Access to quality care outside of the clinical setting is challenging. Patients often need support to self-manage their disease. The purpose of this critical appraisal is to examine the efficacy of telephone follow-up support for patients with uncontrolled diabetes. Evidence indicates that telephone follow-up can improve diabetes outcomes.