Frailty Focus: Empowering Rural Health With Advanced Nurse Practitioners: A Discussion Paper

IF 2.1 4区医学 Q3 HEALTH CARE SCIENCES & SERVICES

Journal of evaluation in clinical practice Pub Date : 2025-04-01 DOI:10.1111/jep.70075

Maria Betts, Deirdre Harkin

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Background

Frailty is a multidimensional condition with symptoms relating to falls, immobility, incontinence, impaired memory and medication side-effects. With increasing numbers of frailty, particularly in rural areas, healthcare systems are being challenged globally. Moreover, frailty may be more common in rural communities as a consequence of transportation issues, limited access to healthcare services and health promotion activities. Advanced Nurse Practitioners are ideally placed to undertake comprehensive geriatric assessments and identify frailly syndromes.

Aims

Explore the function of the Advanced Nurse Practitioner in managing people living with frailty in rural areas, drawing on a review of current guidelines, literature, and practice, considering public health agendas and evidence-based practice.

Design

Discussion paper.

Key Learnings

Frailty is linked to poorer health outcomes, an excessive use of health resources and decreased quality of life. Incorporating Advanced Nurse Practitioners into integrated models of care and health improvement strategies, can improve patient outcomes.

Conclusion

Using advanced clinical and decision-making skills, Advanced Nurse practitioners deliver evidence-based care to improve patient safety and health outcomes. Creating partnerships to enhance the provision of healthcare, they are focused on frailty prevention, detection and providing support to develop co-produced management plans to address individual needs. The Advanced Nurse Practitioner has the ability to practice autonomously within an expanded scope of clinical practice, making them the ideal professional to support people living with frailty in rural areas.

Impact for Nursing

When thinking about future strategies for advanced practice, it is important to acknowledge the lack of regulation, roles in nursing, inadequate title protection, role variability, and different educational requirements. Organisations need to consider the enablers and barriers of Advanced Nurse Practitioners fulfilling their duties. Advanced Nurse practitioners are guided by public health agendas to improve the population health of those in rural areas.

No Patient or Public Contribution

This is a discussion paper.

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来源期刊

Journal of evaluation in clinical practice 医学-卫生保健

CiteScore

4.80

自引率

4.20%

发文量

143

审稿时长

3-8 weeks

期刊介绍： The Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice aims to promote the evaluation and development of clinical practice across medicine, nursing and the allied health professions. All aspects of health services research and public health policy analysis and debate are of interest to the Journal whether studied from a population-based or individual patient-centred perspective. Of particular interest to the Journal are submissions on all aspects of clinical effectiveness and efficiency including evidence-based medicine, clinical practice guidelines, clinical decision making, clinical services organisation, implementation and delivery, health economic evaluation, health process and outcome measurement and new or improved methods (conceptual and statistical) for systematic inquiry into clinical practice. Papers may take a classical quantitative or qualitative approach to investigation (or may utilise both techniques) or may take the form of learned essays, structured/systematic reviews and critiques.