A scoping review of nurse practitioner workforce data: Part two of a four-part series on critical topics identified by the 2015 Research Agenda Roundtable.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

There is no single comprehensive data source for conducting nurse practitioner (NP)-focused workforce and outcomes research. The 2015 Research Agenda Roundtable of the Fellows of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners supports the development of a national NP data source. A scoping review was conducted to provide an overview of data being used in NP-focused research and to identify key issues relevant to making progress toward a national NP database.

METHODS

PubMed, CINAHL, and EMBASE were searched for English-language articles published within the past 10 years (2007-2017). Twenty-one articles were included for review and categorized into three themes: 1) NP Workforce Data Collection and Availability; 2) Using Data to Identify NPs; and 3) Minimum Data Sets and Key Variables.

CONCLUSIONS

General consensus among workforce experts suggests that rich sources of NP data exist. However, challenges include a lack of a national data source for studying the NP workforce and outcomes; the inability to identify individual NP providers within existing data; and variations in how different sources of data are collected.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE

Improved NP workforce data collection is vital for workforce planning and forecasting and has implications for outcomes research and NP workforce distribution and employment.