Introduction
Family nurse practitioners (FNP) are registered nurses whose special education allows him or her to engage in family practice. Usually, FNP specialists have a higher degree of training applied to clinical and classroom settings and can work with both children and adults. The major duty of a family nurse practitioner is to maintain patients’ health and wellness over a long period with the emphasis on preventative care. While some FNPs may work under the supervision, the vast majority of them perform their working duties independently. Such a tendency has been established due to an extreme lack of family practice doctors. Quite often their roles are performed by the nurses themselves. The following study will review the three scholarly articles devoted to FNP practice and the role of a family nurse practitioner according to National Patient Safety Goals (NPSG). The findings of the articles will be used to make a systematization of the key tasks of FNP units.
Roles of a Family Nurse Practitioner
FNPs are recognized by the NPSG as an integral force performing both clinical and non-clinical duties in the environments and communities they work with (Walsh, Moore, Barber, & Opsteen, 2014). Regarding the clinical roles, family nurse practitioners are registered with clinical departments since they provide medical services to patients and promote a healthy lifestyle. Because of their broad experience in nursing practice, FNPs are allowed to give prescriptions to their home-based patients and make suggestions about therapy courses. All the above-stated functions enable these units to perform duties as clinical officers. Nevertheless, there are also non-clinical roles that family nurse practitioners have to cope with in their daily practice. Among those one can highlight such functions as advisory and counseling. The way a nurse builds up communication with a patient often has a direct impact on how effective a treatment course will be. Education skills usually play a relevant part in performing that kind of task.
Research Article 1
Hayden, Burlingame, Thompson, & Sabol (2014) write in their article that emergency departments across the country face the problem of increased wait times and decreased patients’ satisfaction. The major reason for this occurrence is the shortage of medical workers involved in emergency unit operation. The need to engage family nurse practitioners into the work of emergency departments is sometimes too essential. The authors stress that the use of family nurse practitioners in a triage setting has expanded over the past 10 years from 5.5% to 12.7% (Hayden et al., 2014). This practice has demonstrated the beneficial outcomes since FNPs are less costly than physicians and are widely accepted by patients.
Research Article 2
Poronsky (2013) states in his research that the knowledge about the transition from a registered nurse to a family nurse practitioner is very insufficient. Therefore, a close study of the matter is required to define the stages of this process. It is known that the transition is always accompanied by feelings of confusion, anxiety, and stress. The author stresses that “nurse faculty might be in a position to provide support for graduate students making this transition” (Poronsky, 2013, p. 353). His other argument states that studying transition theory may be useful for conducting a more substantial analysis of the issue and helping registered nurses to prepare themselves for independent practice as family nurse practitioners. In the times of an increased need for primary care providers, a given topic might be of primary importance.
Expert Opinion Article
In their article, Walsh et al. (2014) discuss the role of a nurse practitioner as, first of all, an educator of family members in matters of care delivery. The researchers use a qualitative method of data retrieval as the major approach to findings systematization. They have conducted semi-structured interviews with the examinees. All data were audiotaped and transcribed. The factors influencing the educational role of nurse practitioners, such as knowledge in specialized areas and scope of practice, have been identified and closely considered. The research findings showed that a vast majority of patients “believed they needed to think like physicians and preferred clinical teaching from physical teachers” (Walsh et al., 2014, p. e316). Thus, the role of family nurse practitioners has been clearly defined: FNPs play one of the key parts in patients’ education and recovery goals formation.
Conclusion
In closing, one needs to admit that the role of family nurse practitioners does not end at fulfilling their clinical tasks. A non-clinical aspect of their practice has no less important meaning for effective delivery of healthcare. Thus, close communication with patients, counseling family members, and educating caregivers appear to be the tasks a nurse practitioner is supposed to perform without reproach as well. The way this cooperation is established often has an impact on how effective a treatment course will be and how quickly a recovery process will flow. The findings of the three reviewed articles show that the intervention of FNPs is welcomed by patients and has a tendency to raise their motivation in the matters of a properly conducted healthcare.
References
Hayden, C., Burlingame, P., Thompson, H., & Sabol, V. K. (2014). Improving patient flow in the emergency department by placing a family nurse practitioner in triage: A quality-improvement project. Journal of Emergency Nursing, 40(4), 346-351.
Poronsky, C. B. (2013). Exploring the transition from registered nurse to family nurse practitioner. Journal of Professional Nursing, 29(6), 350-358.
Walsh, A., Moore, A., Barber, A., & Opsteen, J. (2014). Educational role of nurse practitioners in a family practice centre. Canadian Family Physician, 60(6), e316-e321.