Advanced Diagnostic Content in Nurse Practitioner and Physician Assistant Programs

• NP and PA program directors have similar expectations for content that should be included in the curriculum.
• NP and PA programs differ in the amount of time allocated for 8 of the 9 advanced diagnostic skills.
• 72% of PA programs compared with 11% of NP programs spend > 6 hours on EKG interpretation.
• NP and PA programs do not differ on the amount of time teaching coding skills for patient visits.
• NP programs are more likely to use online teaching methods than PA programs.

Nurse practitioners and physician assistants who provide care to patients use advanced skills frequently. This work explores curricular content pertaining to procedural skills and diagnostic and laboratory tests in nurse practitioner (NP) and physician assistant (PA) programs. A descriptive, cross-sectional design was used. Data collection consisted of an online survey with responses from 106 of 297 NP programs and 47 of 125 PA programs. Kruskal-Wallis test demonstrated significant differences between NP and PA programs. Opportunities exist for NP and PA educators to improve congruence between perceived importance and amount of time spent on educational activities in NP and PA curriculums.