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Precision health is emerging as a standard of care in acute and ambulatory settings, requiring that foundational content pertaining to genetics and genomics be integrated into prelicensure nursing education curricula. The International Society of Nurses in Genetics (ISONG) is a global nursing specialty organization dedicated to genomic health care, education, research, and scholarship. The education committee of this organization meets monthly to advance dialogue pertaining to nursing education in the area of genomics. In multiple meetings held by ISONG, it was identified that key genomic content is not consistently integrated into curricula across prelicensure nursing programs. In response to this content gap, the ISONG Education Committee established a task force committed to creating a crosswalk of genomic competencies to correspond with select professional standards and guidelines for use by faculty in prelicensure nursing programs. The crosswalk was designed to address competencies required for entry-level nurses to practice safely and deliver quality care relative to precision health. Crosswalks are tools that provide opportunities for nurse educators to align competency-based learning outcomes with professional nursing standards and guidelines (Hai-Jew, 2019).
Genomic Literacy
Linking established genomic competencies to professional nursing standards and guidelines for prelicensure nursing curricula has not been completed (American Nurses Association [ANA], 2023). A key element of genomic competence is genomic literacy (ANA, 2023; Hai-Jew, 2019). Genomic literacy is defined as “the capacity to obtain, process, understand, and use genomic information for health-related decision-making” (Zimani et al., 2021, para 2). Genomic literacy will enable individual nurses to translate genomic content across settings as they interact with individuals, families, and communities (Parviainen et al., 2023). Failure to address nurses' genomic literacy within the context of professional standards may hinder integration of emergent and future precision models of health and health care delivery (ANA, 2023; Parviainen, 2023).
The need for genomic literacy in nursing curricula is not new. The NCLEX-RN®, an entry-level examination, does not specifically reference genetic or genomic content. A search of the NCLEX-RN Test Plan (ANA, 2023) document did not reveal the terms genetics, genomics, inheritance, or heredity. However, broad competencies related to the ability to monitor diagnostic testing and intervene as needed, identify pathophysiology related...