What do you think about this article?

[Teggie]

http://www.nursingprogramshq.com/what-does-obamacare-mean-for-nurses/

Not sure I agree with this. Wouldn't we in a sense, be practicing medicine? Physicians, PA's, NP's and RN's work best together as a team. Not as different entities. This article implies we will essentially be stepping into physician roles. Are we trained enough for that liability? Does our scope of practice include that? Am I missing something here?

Nurses are trained to be nurses. Our scope of practice does not include diagnosing and treating illnesses. Not putting us down in any way but we only receive half the training our physicians do. I don't want that responsibility. Maybe this article should have been named "Nurses, the new scapegoats of healthcare"?

Healthcare needs physicians AND nurses. One does not work well without the other. We need our docs to diagnose and dictate the treatment plan for our patients. Our docs need us to carry that plan out and teach and encourage our patients. Separating the two, in my opinion is a disaster. If this causes many physicians to leave essential areas of healthcare who is going to treat and care for the patients? I try to think of it this way, what if this concerned your Parent? Sibling? Child? Spouse? Would you be comfortable with this scenario?

What are your thoughts?

[MunoRN, RN]

Maybe I missed it, but I didn't really see that the article was suggesting Nurses "practice medicine". The article mirrored the "Transforming Care at the Bedside" campaign, which has been around for a while. This does advocate Nursing taking over many responsibilities traditionally held by Physicians, such as care coordination, which isn't really "practicing medicine".

While Doc's do diagnose and prescribe, I don't agree that they are responsible for dictating the treatment plan. They're responsible for the medical diagnosis and prescribing portions of the treatment plan, but beyond that I think it does make more sense for Nurses to play a larger role.

Nursing is also expected to take on a larger role in primary care in the future, but again here we'll still be depending on Physicians for diagnosing and prescribing, Nursing will likely take on a larger role in establishing the rest of the treatment plan, as well as evaluating the entire treatment plan and following patients.

This trend is already well underway, patients have been getting more complex for some time now, and in the process Nurses have had to adjust to treating patients more independently.

[Teggie]

This part of the article is what made me come to that implication:

"More nurses are now also working completely on their own in many poor inner-city neighborhoods and rural communities where doctors in private practice are few and far between."

It stated completely, to me that means they are the only contact with that patient. I can only assume they must be working under a physicians direction somewhere? It doesnt specify in what capacity they are seeing these patients. I know when I worked for the health department, we saw patients initially by ourselves but they also attended a medical clinic where they were properly seen by a physician. Maybe I am just reading too much into that or perhaps the author should have elaborated a bit more about that.

I understand the trends to which you are referring, I just question our liabilty in meeting those trends as our responsibilities ever increase. And with physicians possibly leaving areas altogether where does that leave our patients? And us?

[h=3][/h]