URI Nursing plan to teach preceptors benefits students, patients

Nurse practitioner students at URI will get more hands-on experience and expert guidance — to the benefit of the students and patients at local community health centers — thanks to a URI College of Nursing program to recruit and educate the preceptors who mentor them.

The Advanced Nursing Education Workforce program, funded by a $2.7 million federal Health Resources and Services Administration grant, enhances the academic clinical partnerships among the University, Thundermist Health Center and Providence Community Health Center. The four-year grant follows a previous $1.8 million HRSA grant.

Students are placed in the health centers to provide primary care and behavioral health services, under the supervision of professionals the college recruits. In exchange for their work, the grant funds the students’ tuition during their traineeships. To incentivize potential preceptors, the program provides advanced education, including an annual conference at which preceptors receive free continuing education units, and a series of virtual classes accessible only to qualified preceptors.

Preceptors include working nurse practitioners, doctors and physicians’ associates who provide one-on-one mentoring for nurse practitioner students and supervise the students’ clinical work in community health centers.

“Preceptors are a logical extension of what we are teaching in the classroom. That’s why educating them is so key,” said Associate Professor Denise Coppa, who secured the grant funding. “You can’t be teaching students one thing and then they go into the clinics and hear something else. We are using the grant money on many levels to make sure the students and preceptors are getting an education that is comprehensive, continuous and consistent with standards of practice and scope of practice.”

The program provided funding for 21 students in the most recent semester, and Coppa expects dozens more to benefit over the four-year period. The College works with about 100 preceptors, a number Coppa hopes will increase by as much as 20 percent.