Roles of the Nurse Practitioner

This research provides an overview of the present and future roles of nurse practitioners. The role of the nurse practitioner has been evolving from a medical to a nursing orientation since the inception of role in 1955 (Thibodeau and Hawkins, 1994, pp. 205218).

As a result of the combination of factors (increasing costs of health care, changing societal values, advances in treatment therapies, and many others), the delivery of health care services in the United States is undergoing rapid and important change. One of the more significant of the changes occurring involves the direct delivery of health care services by non physician health care professionals. There exists both substantial support for this trend, as well as substantial opposition to it (Hupcey, 1993, pp. 181185). Nurse practitioners are among the most prominent of the non physician health care professionals involved in the direct delivery of health care services to patients.

Current Roles of Nurse Practitioners

Nurse practitioners engage in the delivery of a wide variety of health care services without the direct supervision of physicians (Thibodeau and Hawkins, 1994, pp. 205218). The early role of the nurse practitioner was primarily as a member of a primary health care team. This role continues to be important in the 1990s, although the function of the nurse practitioner has expanded far beyond the primary health care team concept

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pulation approximately 250 million, the 12 percent without formal health care insurance translates into approximately 30 million people. Many of these people are homeless. Almost all are indigent. Health care funding for these persons is provided through the Medicaid program. Indigent persons tend to postpone medical consultation and treatment to avoid incurring costs they cannot afford. As a consequence, when they do receive health care services, those services are typically more extensive and more costly than would have been the case, had consultation and treatment been sought earlier. The higher cost of these deferred services adds further pressures to the problem of funding health care services for the indigent, including the homeless. It is into this situation of health care services need for the nation's indigent, including the homeless, that the nurse managed clinic is entering in the 1990s (Huston, 1991, pp. 1014). Primary health care teams are of special significance in the delivery of health care services to indigent persons because their health care needs tend to be complex as a consequence of delaying health care consultation (Reifsteck and D'Angelo, 1990, pp. 1221). Nurse managed clinics for the indigent ar
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Thibodeau Hawkins, Reifsteck D'Angelo, Fanshel Lutz, Behner Hagerott, Fenton Bryczynski, health care, Budget Office, Keane Richmond, Nurse Practitioners, Trotter Danaher, care services, health care services, nurse practitioner, Banjok Wright, nurse practitioners, nurse managed, role nurse, role nurse practitioner, primary health care, primary health, delivery health, nurse managed clinics, 1994 pp, managed clinics, delivery health care,
Approximate Word count = 2291
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

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