Health practitioner experience of Health and Disability Commissioner investigations.

INTRODUCTION The New Zealand Health and Disability Commissioner (HDC) Act 1994 was designed to protect the rights of consumers and provide a fair, simple, speedy, and efficient resolution to complaints. No recent studies have been published about the health practitioner experience of HDC investigations following a patient complaint, and none that include nurses and midwives. AIM To use a restorative inquiry framework to understand the impacts and needs of health practitioners arising from an event that led to an investigation by the HDC during the last 10 years.

Thinking about health care differently: nurse practitioners in primary health care as social entrepreneurs.

INTRODUCTION Challenges facing the primary health-care sector mean that policymakers and clinicians need to think and act differently to move forward. The principles of social entrepreneurship have been implemented successfully for improved health outcomes in other developed nations. There is a knowledge gap around whether nurse practitioners (NPs) in New Zealand primary health care (PHC) align with these principles.

The complexity of food for people with multiple long-term health conditions.

INTRODUCTION The prevalence of long-term health conditions (LTCs) continues to increase and it is normal for people to have several. Lifestyle is a core feature of the self-management support given to people with LTCs, yet it seems to fail to meet their needs. From a larger study exploring the experiences of this group, this paper reports on the role of food and mealtimes, and the effect of the nutritional advice on the lives of people with several LTCs.

Self-management support? Listening to people with complex co-morbidities.

Objectives: The study aimed to explore how people with complex, established co-morbidities experience long-term condition care in New Zealand. Despite the original conception as appropriate for people with early stage disease, in New Zealand the self-management approach dominates the care provided to people at all stages of diagnosis with long-term conditions, something reinforced through particular funding mechanisms.

Methods: A multiple case study followed the lives of 16 people with several long-term conditions.

RN Prescribing: An Expanded Role for Nursing.

Purpose: With the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, recommendations of the Future of Nursing Report, and recent regulatory changes by state boards of nursing, registered nurse (RN) roles are expanding. In this article, we advocate for RN prescribing as an expanded role in the United States.

Methods: We reviewed the literature on RN prescribing, the background in both high- and low-resource countries, levels of prescribing, specialized settings for RN prescribing, both RN and patients views/perceptions of prescribing, and evaluation research.

Proposals for registered nurse prescribing: perceptions and intentions of nurses working in primary health care settings.

Introduction: In 2013, the Nursing Council of New Zealand consulted on a proposal for introduction of registered nurse (RN) prescribing at two levels (specialist and community) within the designated class of prescriber. The proposal builds on the success of the diabetes nurse specialist prescribing project and the experience of other countries where RN prescribing is well established.

Aim: To describe the views and intentions of nurses who work in primary health care (PHC) settings about the two levels of RN prescribing proposed.

Coaching Non-technical Skills Improves Surgical Residents' Performance in a Simulated Operating Room.

Objective: To investigate the effect of coaching on non-technical skills and performance during laparoscopic cholecystectomy in a simulated operating room (OR).

Background: Non-technical skills (situation awareness, decision making, teamwork, and leadership) underpin technical ability and are critical to the success of operations and the safety of patients in the OR. The rate of developing assessment tools in this area has outpaced development of workable interventions to improve non-technical skills in surgical training and beyond.

Nurses' reported use of standing orders in primary health care settings.

Introduction: The Medicines (Standing Order) Amendment Regulations 2011 allow medicines to be supplied or administered to a patient by a nurse in the absence of a medical practitioner and without a prescription. Regulations have been in place since 2002, but no substantive research has occurred in New Zealand concerning their use.

Aim: This paper reports a survey of registered nurses (RNs) who work in primary health care (PHC) settings and explores aspects of their practice relating to their use of standing orders.

Evaluation of a diabetes nurse specialist prescribing project.

Aims And Objectives: To evaluate the diabetes nurse specialist prescribing project with the aim of determining whether diabetes nurse specialist prescribing is safe and effective and to inform the implementation and extension of registered nurse prescribing.

Background: Registered nurses in many countries are able to prescribe medicines, but in New Zealand, prior to the diabetes nurse specialist project, nurse practitioners were the only nurses who could prescribe medicines. New regulations allowed the nurses to prescribe a limited number of prescription medicines.

Reasons for non-attendance: audit findings from a nurse-led clinic.

Background And Context: Evidence has shown that non-attendance at clinics occurs for a variety of reasons and impacts negatively on client outcomes and effective use of clinic resources. This paper reports an audit of non-attendance at Care Plus and diabetes clinics undertaken between October 2007 and October 2008, in a large general practice in the Wellington region.

Assessment Of Problem: A retrospective and prospective audit of the non-attendance rate at nurse-led wellness clinics was completed using the Query Builder function in Medtech32, collecting data from 142 people who did not attend a scheduled appointment.

Extending the prescribing framework to nurses: lessons from the past.

This paper highlights the parallels between the journey to prescribing for nurse practitioners when the role was initially introduced in New Zealand and the journey now towards extending the prescribing framework to registered nurses. Nurse practitioners are the only nurses who can prescribe medicines, and their numbers are few. There are several thousand experienced registered nurses who meet the education requirements to be a nurse practitioner but who have not applied to the regulatory body for registration.

Return visits to the emergency department and related hospital admissions by people aged 65 and over.

Aim: To describe the factors most commonly associated with re-presentation to the emergency department (ED) and related hospital admissions by those aged 65 years and over in one New Zealand district health board (DHB) region.

Methods: Computerised and paper-based records of 59 patients were examined. The sample was selected using proportionate stratified random sampling to ensure equivalent proportions of patients re-presenting to the tertiary hospital's ED and the secondary hospital's accident and medical department.

Practice nurse use of evidence in clinical practice: a descriptive survey.

The role of practice nurses is a specific feature of the modernisation agenda of the New Zealand health service. Increasing importance is being placed on service improvement through effective decision making and enhanced clinical performance. To contribute to the development of primary health care it is crucial that nurses have the skills to appropriately implement research based and other evidence in practice.

Constructing consensus: developing an advanced nursing practice role.

Following the release of the Ministerial Taskforce on Nursing in August 1998 and the withdrawal of the New Zealand Nurses Organisation from the Taskforce membership, a 'decision-making' workshop was held to further advance nursing practice roles in New Zealand. Momentum about advanced nursing roles had been gathering spurred on by political reform and the research about established nursing practitioner and clinical nurse specialist roles overseas. This study uses a discourse analytical approach to trace the ongoing struggle between nursing groups for power to control the future of advanced nursing practice.

The Ministerial Taskforce on Nursing: a struggle for control.

It is now ten years since the Ministerial Taskforce on Nursing released its report identifying the barriers that prevented nursing from realising its full potential. A key recommendation was the development of advanced clinical nursing roles that went beyond traditional and institutional boundaries. The constitution and work of the Taskforce is traced in this study, along with the struggle that arose between nursing groups for power to control the future of advanced nursing practice.