Abstract 15537: Complex Congenital Heart Patients: Education Program for Advanced Practice Providers

Abstract

Introduction: With appropriate training and support, Advanced Practice Providers (APPs) offer value in specialty patient care in a congenital heart program (CHP) providing continuity, cost effective, and specialized care. Hypothesis: We hypothesized that APPs caring for patients in a CHP lack standard curriculum to quantify success and improvement. Developing a dedicated education program allows identification of knowledge gaps and improves focused learning. Integrating a shared model for education with pre/post-tests increases proficiency and professional development. Methods: 20 APPs were included in our CHP education model including 63 focused learning modules in pediatric cardiology with complex congenital heart disease (CHD) and cardiac intensive care with aspects of post-operative management, multi-disciplinary, APP-specific teaching sessions, APP-led journal clubs, research/QI projects, interactive lectures, visuals, and key articles. Knowledge of the core CHP learning objectives were measured through 514 individual pre/post module tests by utilizing and strategically combining peer reviewed resources in CHD/critical care for each learning module. APPs satisfaction was evaluated using a 5-point scale (outstanding, good, acceptable, fair, unsatisfactory) for core education, faculty support, and translation to clinical practice. Results: Increase in knowledge was observed with pre/post test scores of 67.2% and 97.6%, respectively (P<0.0001). Fetal, chest radiography, and cardiac output were identified with lower pre-test scores < 50% allowing refocused education, resulting in post-test scores > 96% (P<0.0001). Core education program, faculty support, and translation to clinical practice were scored as outstanding (n=10, 50%) or good (n=10, 50%). Conclusions: In conclusion, our APPs and multi-disciplinary specialists have successfully integrated an education program, improving performance in a rapidly growing department. The success in identifying educational opportunities via pretests and adapting our educational focus has provided an infrastructure to improve patient care and safety. Our efforts and bidirectional feedback have resulted in satisfaction and ideally long-term APPs retention.