PRESENT AND FUTURE 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. 205 218).
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. 181 185). 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. 205 218). 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. Primary health care teams may be developed for the care of men, women, and children, as well as for any number of special classifications of patients. For purposes of illustration, however, consider a primary health care team for women patients. An ideal team for the delivery of primary health care to women would include nurse midwives, nurse practitioners, family practice physicians, obstetrician/gynecologists, mental health professionals, health educators, nutritio...