The work of nurse practitioners

Area of Science:

• Nursing Practice
• Health Services Research

Background:

• The nurse practitioner (NP) role is an international strategy to enhance healthcare access and timeliness.
• While NP roles and outcomes are well-researched, the specific patterns of NP work and influencing factors remain underexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate variations in nurse practitioner (NP) work patterns.
• To analyze how NPs allocate their time across direct patient care, indirect patient care, and service-related activities in diverse settings.

Main Methods:

• Utilized work sampling methodology for data collection.
• Conducted 12,189 observations of 30 nurse practitioners across Australia between July 2008 and January 2009.
• Observations were systematically sampled over a 6-week period.

Main Results:

• Identified 30 distinct activities performed by nurse practitioners.
• Found that direct patient care constituted 36.1% of NP time.
• Indirect care (32.0%) and service-related activities (31.9%) accounted for the remaining time, indicating a balanced distribution.

Conclusions:

• The study establishes crucial baseline data for evaluating nurse practitioner positions and their service impact.
• Findings highlight the need to examine the optimal use of NP time.
• Further research is needed on barriers and facilitators influencing this service innovation model.