Maternal-infant health outcomes and nursing practice in a remote First Nations community in northern Canada.

This article reports those findings related to maternal-infant health outcomes of an ethnographic study that explored nursing practice, continuity of care, and health outcomes in one remote First Nations community in northern Canada. Use of multiple data sources within an ethnographic design ensured that quantitative health outcomes data were interpreted within a contextualized understanding of the remote First Nations community.The sample comprised the charts of 65 mothers and 63 infants randomly selected for retrospective chart review.

Nurse practitioners and controlled substances prescriptive authority: improving access to care.

In 2007, Health Canada proposed a new framework to regulate prescriptive authority for controlled substances, titled New Classes of Practitioners Regulations (NCPR). The new regulatory framework was passed in November 2012; it gives nurse practitioners (NPs), midwives and podiatrists the authority to prescribe controlled medications under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. It is expected that authorizing NPs to write prescriptions for certain controlled substances commonly used in primary care will enhance flexibility and timeliness in primary care service delivery.

Remote nursing certified practice: viewing nursing and nurse practitioner practice through a social justice lens.

Remote Nursing Certified Practice (RNCP) was introduced in 2010 to regulate nursing practice in remote, largely First Nations communities in British Columbia, Canada. These are communities that often experience profound health and health-care inequities. Typically nurses are the main health-care providers.

Examining the potential of nurse practitioners from a critical social justice perspective.

Nurse practitioners (NPs) are increasingly called on to provide high-quality health-care particularly for people who face significant barriers to accessing services. Although discourses of social justice have become relatively common in nursing and health services literature, critical analyses of how NP roles articulate with social justice issues have received less attention. In this study, we examine the role of NPs from a critical social justice perspective.

The influence of geographical and social distance on nursing practice and continuity of care in a remote First Nations community.

The purpose of this article, which draws on the findings of a larger ethnographic study, is to explore the influences of geographical and social distancing on nursing practice and continuity of care in a remote First Nations community in Canada. Employing an ethnographic design, the authors use multiple data sources to ground the analysis in the unique context of health services in the selected community. The findings suggest that remote geographical location, the inequitable social conditions that shape the health and well-being of First Nations people, and nurses' level of preparedness to practise in this complex environment fostered patterns of social distancing in nurse-patient relationships.

Beyond caring: the moral and ethical bases of responsive nurse-patient relationships.

Although we theorize that nurses "make a difference" to patient outcomes and speculate that this happens because nurses "care", there is so far little evidence to support this nebulous claim. Efforts to promote care as the defining characteristic of nursing, and an "ethic of care" as the ethical basis of nursing, have sparked debate within the discipline. This debate has resulted in a polarization that has effectively stalled productive discourse on the issues.

Voices from the wilderness: an interpretive study describing the role and practice of outpost nurses.

Objective: Outpost nurses function as primary care providers and in a community health nursing role, providing comprehensive primary health care in Canada's underserved northern communities. Little information exists regarding how outpost nurses meet this expectation. The purpose of this interpretive study was to address the following research questions: 1) How do experienced outpost nurses perceive and enact their role? 2) How are practical knowledge and clinical wisdom revealed in the practice narratives of experienced outpost nurses?

Methods: Purposive sampling was used to recruit the nine experienced outpost nurses who participated by sharing narratives of clinical practice.

Implementing advanced nurse practitioner roles in acute care: an evaluation of organizational change.

Medical shortages are seen as the driving force behind the recent implementation of the advanced nurse practitioner (ANP) role in some Canadian hospitals. The authors analyzed the implementation of the ANP role in one tertiary care teaching hospital from the organizational change perspective. Despite successful implementation, issues of role definition, scope of practice boundaries, and staff reactions remain unresolved.