Ambulatory care procedures performed by pediatric nurse practitioners

Despite efforts to develop programs that prepared the nurse practitioner (NP) to perform their roles competently within a primary care setting, many NPs are still learning ambulatory care procedures from on-the-job-training and special classes after NP certification. In order to provide high quality primary health care and to maximize the NP role, ambulatory care procedures need to be taught in NP programs. In order to respond to this need, it is important to understand what ambulatory care procedures are performed by pediatric nurse practitioners (PNPs) and where they get their initial procedural training. The purpose of this research was to examine what ambulatory care procedures PNPs practice in ambulatory care settings. Another purpose of this research was to discover where PNPs obtained their initial procedural training. This nonexperimental, exploratory, descriptive, quantitative research design was accomplished through a one-time cross-sectional survey completed with the Utah Chapter of the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Associates and Practitioners at the 4th Annual Pediatric Pharmacology Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. The PNPs at the conference were asked to participate. The results of this study indicated that the PNPs have performed many ambulatory care procedures in their work settings. The majority of PNPs obtained their initial procedural training on the job. Some of the PNPs indicated that they need to learn ambulatory care procedures for their work settings. Even fewer PNPs obtained the knowledge from special classes after NP certification. A smaller portion of the PNPs received this training through formal education.