Improving Nurse Practitioner and Physician Assistant Preceptor Knowledge, Self-Efficacy, and Willingness in a Hospital Medicine Practice: An Online Experience.

BACKGROUND A hospital medicine practice experienced an increased demand for additional nurse practitioner (NP) and physician assistant (PA) preceptors. METHOD An online preceptor education course was developed that included eight modules: communication and feedback, expectations for assessment and evaluation, pedagogy, time management and efficiency, goal setting and coaching, working with struggling or at-risk students, legal and ethical considerations, and teaching procedures. Knowledge, self-efficacy, and willingness to precept were examined in a precourse and postcourse format. RESULTS Postcourse, knowledge improved from 69.4% to 90.6%. Self-efficacy improved by 35.2%, and willingness to precept also improved. Qualitative themes emerged, including excitement to precept, helpful course, and time constraints. CONCLUSION An online NP and PA preceptor training program increased preceptor knowledge, self-efficacy, and willingness to serve as a preceptor. Additional research is needed to explore the time constraints to serving as an NP or a PA preceptor in the inpatient environment. [J Contin Educ Nurs. 2020;51(6):275-279.].