Emergency nurse practitioner. The impact on the minor injury services Essay

Emergency nurse practitioner. The impact on the minor injury services (hospital setting A&E) - Essay Example ............................................9 Review of Existing Evidence..................................11 Introduction.............................................................11 Objective..................................................................11 Method.....................................................................12 Findings & Analysis..................................................14 Cost Effectiveness.....................................................14 Care Effectiveness.....................................................17 Patient Satisfaction.....................................................19 Waiting Time...............................................................21 Conclusion...................................................................21 Implication to Practice.................................................22 Implication to Research................................................22 References........................................... ..........................24 Literature Review An Emergency Nurse Practitioner (ENP) is an advanced practice role which delivers primary care in the emergency department (Fitzpatrick and Ea, 2011). The emergency nursing practitioner treats common urgent and non-emergency conditions either independently or in collaboration with an attending General Practitioner. Emergency nurse practitioners often have advanced postgraduate qualifications like Masters degrees which give them additional competencies to handle cases according to medical convention and independently. Emergency Nurse Practitioners (ENPs) go through training that enable them to assess patients accurately and treat certain conditions without consultation with a doctor (Evans, 1997). Amongst the areas where they can operate independently are the interpretation of x-rays, remove foreign bodies from the eyes and the prescription of a specified range of drugs (Evans, 1997). Clearly, the ENP plays a crucial role in the emergenc y unit of medical facilities. They make significant contributions by acting as the first line of call in cases which have a relatively low level of risk. The ENP provides significant support to Emergency Doctors and to an appreciable degree, they can act with a level of independence where the need arises. Hence, the ENP is involved in reducing the waiting time in emergency settings. One may therefore seek to ascertain the actual impact of the ENP in cutting down the waiting time in emergency rooms. This research is a substantive project meant to review the existing evidence in the work of an emergency nursing practitioner. This first part of the paper will involve a literature review on the effect of emergency nursing on waiting time. In attaining this end, important concepts and significant activities undertaken along those lines like reducing waiting times to a mere 4-hour period as encouraged by the British government in the year 2000. Methodology This part of the research will i nvolve a literature review of the new research and studies into emergency nursing and waiting time on patients. It will involve the review of evidence and other findings in studies about the quest to reduce waiting times and the relevant variables involved. To this end, 10 different journals which involve empirical studies will be examined in this study. The findings will culminate in conclusions. The articles examined include an array of papers and empirical research. Most of them were written in the UK. However a minority of the articles were published in American