The shortage of primary care providers is constantly being mentioned with regard to healthcare reform, insurance companies, and institutions. Most of the stakeholders forget to factor in the impact that nurse practitioners can have on increasing access. In my opinion, nurse practitioners can be effectively utilized to improve immensely improve access if their role is understood well. In a lot of countries, chronic diseases are escalating and so is the demand for health services. With populations ageing and the disparities of health increasing, it has become apparent that a more comprehensive primary health care approach that includes nurse practitioners has to be set up. There are a few ways that can be utilized to improve the understanding of the nurse practitioner role.
A critical review of the primary healthcare system will reveal that nurse practitioners cost way less to train that physicians (Austin, 2016) . Most of the skills that they have also already acquired are enough to diagnose most common chronic illnesses and also offer preventive measures (Naylor & Kurtzman, 2010) . If the burden of diagnosing the common illnesses is shifted to nurse practitioners and medical doctors left with the baggage of diagnosing more complicated illnesses that are not within the scope of the practitioners, then a more efficient primary care system will certainly emerge.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Knowledge in medicine remains to be the same. What changes is the titles of the people holding the knowledge. For example, most of the work done by an RN can comfortably be handled by a nurse practitioner. In some cases, NPs have been hired to coordinate duties such as weekend discharges for patients which, traditionally, is a role meant for RNs. This way, RNs become free to help in more complex operations together with the physicians and, hence, generating a self-sufficient system without any compromises (Carryer & Yarwood, 2015) .
References
Austin, D. (2016). New Roles for Nurse Practitioners Bring Opportunities and Challenges. Retrieved 10 January 2020, from https://scienceofcaring.ucsf.edu/patient-care/new-roles-nurse-practitioners-bring-opportunities-and-challenges
Carryer, J., & Yarwood, J. (2015). The nurse practitioner role: Solution or servant in improving primary health care service delivery. Collegian , 22 (2), 169-174. doi: 10.1016/j.colegn.2015.02.004
Naylor, M., & Kurtzman, E. (2010). The Role Of Nurse Practitioners In Reinventing Primary Care. Health Affairs , 29 (5), 893-899. doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.2010.0440
