Nov 12 2007
The Nurse Practitioner
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It’s National Nurse Practitioner Week, and it seems to me that NP’s are still health cares best kept secrete. It’s high time some facts were put on the table…
1. Nurse Practitioners provide high quality primary, acute and specialty health care. NP’s can independently order and interpret diagnostic tests, diagnose acute and chronic illness, prescribe medication, and manage a patient’s care.
2. Nurse Practitioners empower patients to maintain and improve their health by providing individualized and comprehensive health education and counseling. NP’s provide patients wit the information necessary to make healthy lifestyle choices and educated healthcare decisions. On average, NP’s spent 31% more time with patients than do physicians.
3. Nurse Practitioners focus on promoting health and preventing disease, which reduces healthcare cost for patients. NPs are more likely to suggest therapeutic approaches that reduce healthcare cost. Patients with an NP primary care provider have a lower rate of emergency room admission and lower average hospital length-of-stay.
For further information see: Why Choose A Nurse Practitioner as Your Health Care Provider (opens as a PDF document)
If you have difficulty finding a Nurse Practitioner in your area, visit NPFinder.
Hopefully the capacity to produce NP’s will continue to increase as a way to help defray increasing healthcare costs as baby boomers enter the autumns of their lives. Good article…Thanks!