Nurse Practitioners in the Emergency Department

The health care environment in the United States is in a period of dynamic change. Changing social structures are leading to evolving approaches to the delivery of health care. The roles of the various professional providers of health care also are in a state of transition.

The changes in the health care environment result from a combination of factors including increasing costs of health care, changing societal values, advances in treatment therapies, technological innovation, changing demographics, and many other factors. Although health care reform at the federal level has been slowed by partisan politics, the issues motivating this reform movement remain unsolved. Thus, while preciseness in relation to the eventual structure of the health care environment remains elusive, participants in the industry, nevertheless, must develop strategies that will enable them to continue as viable players.

Health care organizations are implementing new patient care delivery models in the hope that such changes will improve costs, care quality, and patient satisfaction (Schweikart, 1996). Together with the redefinition of the roles of many caregiver classifications, team organizational structures are being adapted to many institutional care functions.

Improving the quality of the care provided is widely suggested in the 1990s as the solution to many of the problems being

. . .
ealth community, where the use of multi-disciplinary teams in the delivery of health care services is viewed as a means of promoting improved levels of general health in the country. The development of strategic plans for health care institutions, especially hospitals, that incorporate the concept of multi-disciplinary teams can have superior health care outcomes resulting from a more effective use of nurses. "In theory, nurses should be well situated to deal with patients in a caring fashion, but nursing practice is seldom organized to promote either continuity of care or empathic relationships with patients. Because of assignment to wards for specific periods of time rather than to panels of patients, nurses are barred from realizing the full benefits of their strategic location in the care process. Moreover, humane care requires that doctors and nurses function effectively as partners. Poor communication between physicians and nurses, strained by the lack of mutual respect and feelings of antagonism that generally arise in segregated training experiences, sometimes throws up additional barriers to humane medical care" (Scott, Aiken, Mechanic, & Moravcsik, 1995, p. 82). Development and Use of Multi-Skilled Health Practi
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Martin Hutchinson, TREATMENT Introduction, Krouse Holloran, Holistic Healers, Mechanic Moravcsik, Buchanan Powers, Reifsteck D'Angelo, Smithing Wiley, Benner Wrubel, District Columbia, health care, nurse practitioners, nurse practitioner, hospital emergency, prescriptive authority, health care services, role nurse, care services, delivery minor, emergency departments, care delivery, hospital emergency departments, care hospital emergency, authority nurse practitioners, delivery health care,
Approximate Word count = 7622
Approximate Pages = 30 (250 words per page)

More Essays on Nurse Practitioners in the Emergency Department