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Challenges Facing Nurse Practitioners

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Challenges Facing Nurse Practitioners
Over the last decade, the changing demands in health care have resulted in a significant demand for Nurse Practitioners. A nurse practitioner (NP) is a nurse with a graduate degree in advanced practice nursing. The NP has completed a nurse practitioner program in primary health care and has advanced knowledge and clinical expertise in assessment, diagnosis, treatment, and health care management. The nurse practitioner provides wide-ranging and constant care to patients in a variety of medical settings. There are a number of challenges facing nurse practitioners. The need for a more flexible and progressive approach to a nurse practitioner's delivery of care is a fundamental challenge. Much of the work traditionally carried out by general practitioners will need to be delegated to properly trained personnel such as nurse practitioners. This means that the ability to work with the medical profession and with other healthcare professionals is most important to the leadership challenges facing nurses.
This is particularly important in poorer communities where access to a general physician is limited. Nurses in these settings will be relied on in such areas as providing medical advice, assessing illnesses and injuries, screening and categorizing patients, monitoring and care for patients with chronic illnesses, prescribing and interpreting diagnostic tests, health promotion and education, nutritional advice, breast and cervical screening...etc. The challenges that are most significant to nursing staff are to make a distinction with their roles among other health professionals, and provide a service with reliable guidelines about the clinical and effectiveness of their interventions. The Nurse Practitioner degree program is specific in its objectives that include physical assessment and screening, diagnosis, pharmacology

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