Emergency nurse practitioner (ENP) programs in the United States are beginning the process of aligning their curricula and learning activities in a competency-based model since the recent release of The Essentials: Core Competencies for Professional Nursing Education (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2021).

As the societal journal for the American Academy of Emergency Nurse Practitioners (AAENP), the Advanced Emergency Nursing Journal (AENJ) has been providing this information over the past several years. Articles describing program development, ENP scopes and standards, educational innovations, and competency assessment strategies have been published in AENJ. To assist our readers in faculty positions (be they fellowship or academic), we would like to share some faculty resources related to assessing ENP student competencies in this editorial.

The following publications in past issues of AENJ support program development and growth (see reference list):

* Practice Standards for the Emergency Nurse Practitioner Specialty (AAENP, 2018)

* Post-Graduate Emergency Nurse Practitioner Fellowships. Opportunities for Specialty Education (Rudy & Wilbeck, 2017)

* Emergency Nurse Practitioner Core Educational Content (Wilbeck, Roberts, & Rudy, 2017)

* Standards of Practice for Emergency Nurse Practitioners (Campo et al., 2016b)

* Scope of Practice for Emergency Nurse Practitioner (Campo et al., 2016a)

In addition, clinical and skills evaluation tools aligned with the new essentials are now freely available from AAENP at https://www.aaenp-natl.org/faculty-resources.

Prior publications have also highlighted the creation of exemplar academic and fellowship programs (see reference list):

* An Exemplar Interprofessional Academic Emergency Nurse Practitioner Program: A Blueprint for Success (Evans, Ashooh, Kimble, & Heilpern, 2017)

* An Emergency Medicine Residency for Nurse Practitioners: The New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medicine Experience (Gaudio & Borensztein, 2018)

One final resource for faculty is the newly released Emergency Nurse Practitioner Core Curriculum-A Comprehensive Certification Review for Emergency Nurse Practitioners (1st Edition). This text outlines the essential knowledge for ENPs and is now available for purchase through Springer Publishing.

Certification as an ENP is available from the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners Certification Board (AANPCB). To assist with preparation, the AANPCB website contains additional resources helpful to faculty, including an Emergency Care Procedures list, at https://www.aanpcert.org/resource/documents/Emergency%20care%20Procedures%20%20S

-K. Sue Hoyt, PhD, RN, FNP-BC, ENP-C,

FAEN, FAANP, FAAN

Editor-in-Chief

Professor, NP Programs

Hahn School of Nursing and Health

Science University of San Diego,

California

Jennifer Wilbeck, DNP, RN, FNP-BC,

ACNP-BC, ENP-C, FAANP, FAAN

AAENP Executive Director

Professor & Director, ENP Specialty

Vanderbilt University School of Nursing

Nashville, Tennessee

REFERENCES