Integrating Nurse Practitioners Into Intensive Care Units.

As demand for nurse practitioners in all types of intensive care units continues to increase, ensuring successful integration of these nurses into adult and pediatric general and specialty intensive care units poses several challenges. Adding nurse practitioners requires strategic planning to define critical aspects of the care delivery model before the practitioners are hired, develop a comprehensive program for integrating and training these nurses, and create a plan for implementing the program. Key strategies to ensure successful integration include defining and implementing the role of nurse practitioners, providing options for orientation, and supporting and training novice nurse practitioners.

Advanced Practice Providers' Perceptions of Patient Workload: Results of a Multi-Institutional Survey.

Objective: This study examines data collected from a survey of advanced practice providers' (APPs') perceptions of reasonable versus actual APP-to-patient ratios and other factors that affect workload burden in both inpatient and outpatient clinical settings.

Background: Advanced practice providers provide accessible, cost-effective, and quality care in a growing number of specialty practices across multiple patient care settings. They are caring for higher volumes of patients and assuming more responsibilities while continuing to navigate highly complex healthcare systems.