| Sumario: | Significance & Background: The Commission on Cancer (COC) provides accreditation for 1,500 cancer centers in the United States, and establishes standards to ensure quality, multidisciplinary, and comprehensive cancer care. The CoC maintains that accredited institutions require advanced practice registered nurses (APRN) who provide direct patient care, to hold an oncology certification or complete a minimum of 36 continuing education hours in oncology over each three-year accreditation cycle. Oncology APRNs serving on an APRN Education committee at a large CoC-accredited academic medical center identified that there were limited structured educational activities for APRNs who want to study and sit for the Advanced Oncology Certified Nurse Practitioner (AOCNP®) exam. This served as a possible barrier to certification. Purpose: The APRN Education committee sought to create an AOCNP® Review Course aligning with the Oncology Nursing Certification Corporation (ONCC®) exam blueprint, to provide APRNs with the necessary tools to obtain and maintain advanced oncology certification. Interventions: The APRN Education committee designed a three-day, comprehensive AOCNP® Review Course. Content included topics aligning with ONCC® test blueprint and offered more than 20 hours of continuing education. The course was promoted through social media, mailers, and direct outreach to Oncology Nursing Society chapters. Results: To date, the APRN Education committee has coordinated three live AOCNP® Review Courses since 2019. The first year the course was offered internally to institutional employees and was subsequently expanded to include national participation. Due to demand for self-paced educational content, the AOCNP® Review Course material was also developed into on-demand modules to allow participants additional flexibility. To date, more than 1,600 oncology APRNs across the United States have attended the live or enduring AOCNP® Review Courses. The AOCNP® Review Course in combination with other certification incentives such as the ONCC® Free Take program and an annual certification stipend for APRNs has helped increase the number of AOCNP® certified nurses within the host's institution. Discussion: The AOCNP ® Review Course offered a pathway for APRNs to fulfill the requirements of the CoC by offering oncology specific continuing nursing education and a foundation for certification. Certification provides validation of APRNs' clinical knowledge and supports their professional credibility. Through creating an AOCNP® Review Course open to APRNs nationwide, this program was able to disseminate tools and knowledge to positively impact and assist oncology APRNs in achieving specialty certification.
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