Nurses are currently the largest group of providers in healthcare, yet do not get the autonomy they deserve when it comes to treating patients. The article “Nurse Practioners Fight for more Independence” by Laura Ungar from USA Today argues that nurse with a advance degree should have the right to lead in patient treatment, without having an agreement with a doctor. The Affordable Care Act brings more patients into the pool of people that need to be seen in primary care, and there simply aren 't enough doctors to go around. Nurses’ quest for autonomy, “is much less about turf wars than it is about patients that need to be seen” (Ungar 2). Autonomy in healthcare means the ability to make decisions unaided by others. As nurses struggle over more
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Nurses with advanced degrees are not allowed to treat patients or write scripts without a physicians agreement. Doctors argue that the agreement helps keep patients safe, but nurses say these restrictions cause nothing but problems, and is just a paper that sits in a file, that no one ever sees (Ungar 4). “Many practices run by nurse practitioners have had to temporarily close because they couldn 't find collaborating physicians” to make a agreement with (Ungar). Nurse practitioner Bob Hobbs almost had his practiced closed to patients, because the doctor who gave him permission to write scripts was leaving the state, and he could not find another doctor quickly enough (Ungar 1). Doctors charge nurses’ up to $1,000 a month for signing this collaborative agreement, even in states where physicians don 't have to review patients charts or provide supervision (Ungar 4). This agreement is especially inconvenient for nurses’ in rural county, where if they closed due to lack of agreement with physician, it would leave thousands of patients with nowhere to go. If these limitations on nurses with advance degrees do more harm than good, why are they still in place? Paulin W. Chen, M.D in the article, “Nurses’ Role in the Future of Health Care”, says it is the culture of care that prevents nurses with advanced degrees to be leaders in healthcare. “We don 't recognize how critically important it is to maximize the contritions of everyone”(Chen 3). It is thought that physician-led teams ensures more patient safety than nurses, because of the extensive education and training they go through. The Transitional Care Model program, at the University of Pennsylvania, is a innovative nursing-led services. In it’s early trials, the program significantly decreased the hospitals readmissions, because institutions were not willing to enroll patients in a nurse-directed program (Chen 3).
Nurses with advanced degrees are not allowed to treat patients or write scripts without a physicians agreement. Doctors argue that the agreement helps keep patients safe, but nurses say these restrictions cause nothing but problems, and is just a paper that sits in a file, that no one ever sees (Ungar 4). “Many practices run by nurse practitioners have had to temporarily close because they couldn 't find collaborating physicians” to make a agreement with (Ungar). Nurse practitioner Bob Hobbs almost had his practiced closed to patients, because the doctor who gave him permission to write scripts was leaving the state, and he could not find another doctor quickly enough (Ungar 1). Doctors charge nurses’ up to $1,000 a month for signing this collaborative agreement, even in states where physicians don 't have to review patients charts or provide supervision (Ungar 4). This agreement is especially inconvenient for nurses’ in rural county, where if they closed due to lack of agreement with physician, it would leave thousands of patients with nowhere to go. If these limitations on nurses with advance degrees do more harm than good, why are they still in place? Paulin W. Chen, M.D in the article, “Nurses’ Role in the Future of Health Care”, says it is the culture of care that prevents nurses with advanced degrees to be leaders in healthcare. “We don 't recognize how critically important it is to maximize the contritions of everyone”(Chen 3). It is thought that physician-led teams ensures more patient safety than nurses, because of the extensive education and training they go through. The Transitional Care Model program, at the University of Pennsylvania, is a innovative nursing-led services. In it’s early trials, the program significantly decreased the hospitals readmissions, because institutions were not willing to enroll patients in a nurse-directed program (Chen 3).