Reflections on establishing a nurse practitioner role across acute hospital and home-based palliative care settings in Australia.

BACKGROUND

Nurse practitioners have been well-established in many parts of the world and valued as a senior role in healthcare systems. This paper offers an appraisal of a palliative care nurse practitioner model of care project and augments an understanding of being a nurse practitioner (NP) in the Australian context.

AIMS

To enhance outcomes for people regardless of care setting; and to enhance professional relationships between hospital and community services. A secondary objective was to facilitate a seamless transition from one service to another.

METHODS

The setting was a home-based palliative care service and a tertiary acute hospital, between which the role was employed. This paper describes the role from the NP's perspective, using the NP's log of work and personal reflections.

RESULTS

Despite describing many challenges, an NP shared model of care has benefits not just for smoothing the client's journey through settings of care, but also for increased opportunities for clinicians to work together.

CONCLUSIONS

There are opportunities for further research, including models of role implementation, the skills required by the clinician, and acceptance and respect of the NP role.