Preparing Primary Care Registered Nurse Preceptors for Emerging Care Coordination and Chronic Disease Self-Management Roles

Abstract

Nurse educators must prepare the future RN work-force to practice in emerging primary care roles. This program evaluation report describes the approach taken to develop and evaluate a novel preceptor education program designed to prepare RNs to precept nursing students in primary care coordination and disease self-management roles. The program was designed as a three-stage hybrid learning intervention with the goals of preparing RNs to (a) provide primary care coordination and disease self-management support and (b) precept nursing students. Evaluation tools were designed to reflect specific learning objectives of these goals pre- and postintervention. Preliminary evaluation data indicate the preceptor program provided a useful set of educational activities to prepare primary care RN preceptors for their new roles. Participants reported increased confidence levels in primary care coordination and disease self-management and student precepting responsibilities. Nursing students' evaluations showed positive primary care clinical experiences. [ J Contin Educ Nurs. 2023;54(10):454–461.]