Good Example Of Nursing Roles In Care Coordination And Care Transition Essay

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Over the last five years the role of nurses has significantly change because of the developments and reforms initiated in the healthcare delivery system. The authors of the article entitled Patient-Centered Medical Home enumerated how the adaption of this new system has revolutionized how nurses perform the duties and responsibilities in executing the healthcare services to patients. In fact, authors Susan Henderson, Catherine Princell and Sharon Martin stated that nurses are now being tasked to oversee a number of patient’s needs that were not part of their role five years ago. Specific to this roles includes assisting patients during their transition of care particularly relating to medication administration (Henderson, Princell, & Sharon Martin, 2012, p. 57). Prior to the PCMH, nurses are not given the liberty to perform such procedure especially outside the supervision of a physician. Nevertheless, the demands of a more accessible and comprehensive patient care has facilitated for this change in the role of nurses.
Given the change in the roles that nurse play, nurses are required to undergo series of trainings to update their knowledge about the additional responsibilities that have been assigned to them. For example, the Patient-Centered Medical Home model initiates that the medical team handling a patient should be well-informed of the special needs of the patient. This includes a full understanding of their family medical history, their current and past medical conditions among all other medical health records of the patient . To make this possible, medical records are made accessible through the electronic medical health records. Hence, nurses are required to have a full grasp and understanding of how this system operated.
In the future, it will not be surprising to see nurses being given additional responsibility relating to prescriptions. At the moment, this particular role is solely attributed to physicians. However, given the growing scarcity of physicians to cover the demands of the populations nurses might be given that role to stand in place of the doctors in pressing cases. This will help augment the limited number of physicians as well as ensuring that patients receive prompt medical attention for their urgent health concerns.

References

American Academy of Family Physicians. (2015, March 9). Patient Management: The Patient-Centered Medical Home. Retrieved from American Academy of Family Physicians Website: http://www.aafp.org/practice-management/transformation/pcmh.html
Henderson, S., Princell, C., & Sharon Martin, S. (2012). Patient-Centered Medical Home. American Journal of Nurses, 54-59.