Ensuring a competency based curriculum for population focused nursing roles

An evidenced-based approach to preparing Advanced Practice Public Health Nurses (APPHNs) suggests that educational programs should be competency-based to assure graduates are prepared with the necessary attitudes, skills and knowledge for practice. The Quad Council (QC) competencies for public health nursing provide guidance for developing a curriculum to educate Community/Public Health Nurses (C/PHN) at both the generalist and specialist level. However, the Quad Council competencies are based on definitions of C/PHN that focus on nursing roles in traditional public health agencies. Increasingly, C/PHN programs are preparing graduates across a range of community and population focused roles such as school health, occupational/environmental health, home health, and hospice. This is true as well for the C/PHN master's program presented here, where nurses are educated for a variety of these population focused roles. Building on prior work, which mapped the Quad Council competencies across 8 domains, the faculty are engaged in a similar process that maps these additional specialty competencies against the QC ones. The mapping process will identify gaps that need to be addressed in the curriculum. This work will then be reviewed by a national panel of practice leaders in the areas of school health, environmental health, home health and public health. The resulting map will describe how the QC and other specialty competencies relate, and ensure a C/PHN specialist curriculum that is competency based across population focused roles. These efforts will assist in identifying similarities and differences across these population focused specialties, strengthening role definitions for educators and practitioners.