Essay Improving Health in the Primary Care Setting

The role of a family nurse practitioner is a fundamental portion of the future of healthcare. The role is clearly not as understood by other healthcare professionals as needed which results in the disagreement if the role of a family nurse practitioner is even required for primary care. As people are getting older, the need for medical professionals that can provide patient care to our ever growing population increases. The need for the role of family nurse practitioners will grow too. The role of the family nurse practitioner, the ability of the FNP to be able to transition into their role.

There is a growing trend where physicians are choosing different specialties instead of choosing primary care, primarily due to the low reimbursement rate in primary care. According to Iglehart (2014),” the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) still projects a shortage of 130,000 physicians by 2025, split almost equally between primary and specialty care” (para. 1). With this decline comes an answer, an increase in the number of nurse practitioners providing patient care, reported 154,00 in 2012 and growing every year (Iglehart, 2014). This increase in nurse practitioners’ helps fill that gap, allow greater health care access to the community, especially special populations. By gaining access to healthcare were a nurse practitioner is the provider not only with the special population have high quality affordable health care, a trusting long lasting relationship will develop. This relationship will break the barriers of; lack of trust, lack of health care education and discrimination. Nursing is a trusted profession that provides education and care that no other health care professional

Quality of life is how satisfied we are with our lives and whether there are parts of our health that affect this or inhibit this. For example if there was a lack of money in a family due to little financial support then their quality of life would not be good. This is because they would not be able to afford the necessities of life and other recreational activities.

The role of nurse practitioner is valuable when discussing collaborative care. There are so many levels of care, so many health entities, and so many insurer criteria involved that it is instrumental to have a role that can work towards help bring all aspects together. In addition to diagnosing, treating, and managing care, the role of the nurse practitioner is to manage simple and episodic acute health issues along with chronic disease (Sangster-Gormley, Martin-Misener, & Burge, 2013). It is important to note that although this is a function of this role, nurse practitioners also practice from a holistic point of view which allows them to help manage patient conditions or wellness in a more complete fashion. This includes helping patients have access to care beyond primary and secondary care settings. This encourages nurse practitioners to work alongside other health care and allied health professions, and families to create an individualized plan for every patient (van

The role expansion of nurses to meet efficiency targets has meant that nurse-led services in the healthcare setting are expanding as one means of coping with a growing, increasingly ageing population. For those nurses running nurse-led services the focus for that reason, needs to be on treatment that improves the quality of someone’s life and represents an

The Advanced Practice Nursing profession retraces a particular evolutionary pathway over the years to become what it is known today. The movement started in the late 1950’s and the early 1960’s, whereas there was a shortage of primary care physicians because of the rapid expansion of specialization in medicine. Thus, the demand for health care grew to the point that the recruitment of registered nurses to collaborate with physicians was the option. At this point of time, nurses’ collaboration was significant in terms of treatment, disease prevention and health promotion. Since then, the idea of a need for advanced nurse practice takes place in the underserved population areas to increase access to health

Budzi, Lurie, Singh, and Hooker (2010) state, “Nurse Practitioners’ (NP) interpersonal skills in patient teaching, counseling, and patient centered care contribute to positive health outcomes and patient satisfaction.” According to their research they encourage healthcare systems in the U.S. to hire more NPs to allow for better access affordable, and quality care (Denisco & Barker, 2016). With the demand for primary care providers, The NP role aids in delivering a solution to some of the healthcare issues that exist today. Organizations like the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) all agree to allow nurses to practice to their full abilities to make healthcare more accessible and affordable, especially for the aging baby boomers and less accessible rural neighborhoods, and densely populated urban areas. Research has proven that NPs that provide primary care have similar health outcomes to primary care physicians (DeNisco et. al., 2016). NPs particularly take pride in their holistic approach, forming therapeutic relationships between other providers of the healthcare team, patients, and their families, aiding the informed decision making process, use of the evidence based practice approach in health management (Brown, 2005). Some of the other actions or qualities that

2. Think of an example of a time you have received feedback from others than has improved your knowledge, skills and understanding. This may have been from your assessor, tutor, a supervisor or line manager, or individuals using the service. Description of experience How did this experience improve your knowledge, skills and understanding?

One of the suggestions is for licensed practical nurses and registered nurses to incorporate health care education and counseling, using evidenced based clinical guidelines, to patients with chronic conditions through continued care offered via home visits and telephone follow-up calls (Institute of Medicine, 2010). It is also recommended to utilize APRNs as primary care providers in both outpatient and inpatient settings as this decreases the provider to patio ratio thus potentially enhancing the quality of care, and it allows the APRNs to practice to their fullest abilities (Institute of Medicine, 2010). APRNs participating as primary care providers widen the opportunity for health promotion, disease prevention, and limiting disabilities via early diagnosis and treatment. Transformation to a health care system driven by primary care practice as suggested by the IOM report will create a more qualified, accessible, and value driven health care system (Tri-Council for Nursing, 2010).

In the evolving health care environment, a guiding policy and personnel planning is required with respect to the numbers, types and mix of professionals. To overcome the challenges of the existing health care system and practice environment, “nurses need to be well educated, team oriented, adaptable and able to apply competencies relevant to leadership” (The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health, 2011, p. 270). Health care system is complex and has conflicting interests. Nurse helps the patient and family to connect to their social support systems and help to coordinate care and improve patient outcomes. Evidence shows that high quality nursing care can reduce cost

For current and future needs we need to enable all healthcare professionals especially nurses to practice to the full level of their education and training. Advanced practice nurses can fulfill the primary care needs. This will free up physicians to address more complex cases which needs their expertise. Current practice focus on specialty and acute care only and a shift in practice to deliver more primary care and community care services is essential to improve the quality of nursing care and address the growing need of care in these areas.

This essay seeks to discuss the factors that facilitate change in health and social care. This can be achieved by assessing the challenges that the major factors of change bring using the Care Quality Commission of the Quality Care Commission for the Royal United Hospital Bath NHS Trust (RUHB). The second task aims to evaluate contemporary changes being inaugurated in the provision of health and social care services. In addition to this, a strategy and criteria will be devised in order to measure these recent changes including how the impact of these changes can be measured and evaluated.

Primary care practice will be greatly impacted by health care reform. To provide better health care, the country will see a trend away from specialty to primary care and the avoidance of acute issues by delivering this care in the community setting. As a result, primary care physicians will be overwhelmed with the patient load as the number of the insured increases exponentially. The committee recognizes the scope of nursing practice that remains untapped and therefore the profession

During my last year of nursing program, I was placed in Child and Family Health Division at York Region Public Health Services. My preceptor, N., is assigned to revise references in one of the public guides dedicated to discover problems in healthy children’s growth and development and serve as a“ red flag” for professionals, educators, and medical workers. Any “red flag” issue in motor, sensory, learning, developmental areas required immediate reference for further assessment and intervention. The significant amount of time that my preceptor allocated to work was inter-professional collaboration including direct and indirect contact with stakeholders, other health care providers, educational professionals, technical support team, and others. This evidence prompted me to initiate research and reflect on different form of collaboration within public health system.

Historically, nurses focused on the diagnosis and treatment of a disease, sickness or condition and emphasis on health promotion was nonexistent. However, today that has all changed. Nurses are now expected to expand their primary care services to include psychosocial nursing, advocacy, behavioral science, counseling and advocacy in addition to patient assessment, clinical diagnosis and patient-case management. In the article “Defining Nurse Practitioner Scope of Practice: Expanding Primary Care Services,” Sherwood, Brown, and Wardell (1997) state “the role of the nurse practitioner continues to evolve in response to changing societal and health care needs as consumers in all settings seek increasing services”. (Sherwood, Brown and Wardell, 1997).