Ambulatory Care Nursing
Ambulatory care nursing comprises providing care to people, families, groups, populations, carers, and communities throughout their lives (Bardsley, Blunt, Davies, & Dixon, 2013). Ambulatory care nursing encompasses registered nurses' organizational, professional, and clinical engagement for the aforementioned populations seeking support in improving their general well-being or seeking care for a variety of health-related concerns. In contrast to general nursing, which is limited to the hospital, ambulatory nursing extends outside the hospital to include community-based settings such as schools, residences, and workplaces (Bardsley, Blunt, Davies, & Dixon, 2013). Nurses in ambulatory care practice in a wide variety of setting including the primary and specialty setting, Telehealth, and electronic settings, diagnostic and acute surgical setting, the call center and another outpatient setting. Across a lifespan, the ambulatory care nursing can effectively utilize each specific standard of practice and provide the best care for any patient encountered (Kangovi et al. 2013). With care transiting from inpatient to the outpatient setting, the ambulatory care nursing has become a crucial healthcare delivery mechanism that reaches to a wide variety of patient at any specific length of time.
Ambulatory Care Nursing Guided by Evidence-Based Practice
Ambulatory care nurses come across a wide variety of patients from all walks of life. They care for the old as well as the young in a hospital or in any other setting. In addition, they coordinate care, educate patients, and measure and improve the outcomes of the patients. In order to achieve positive results, ambulatory care nurses rely on evidence-based practice in their care of patients (Haas & Swan, 2014). These nurses require a critical reasoning ability, the astute clinical judgment in any health emergency, as well providing answers in complex life threatening problems. Ambulatory care nursing integrates search for as well as a critical appraisal of the most relevant evidence to provide answers to burning clinical questions (Kangovi et al. 2013). Moreover, their incorporate their own clinical experience as well as studying the patient’s preference and values to come up with the effective methods of providing care for any disease. The use of current evidence to make a decision on their patients, allows ambulatory patients to access research, clinical guidelines and more information resources that are based on the high-quality discoveries (Fajardo, Kim & Szabo, 2012). These results are utilized to provide the best care for the patient.
Duration of Nursing Care and Patient Encounter
During this decade, patients are sicker, have more life-threatening diseases, stay in the hospital for a shorter time, and procedures performed on outpatients are more invasive and complex than ever before (Fajardo, Kim & Szabo, 2012). To bridge the gap left by this predicaments, ambulatory nursing emphasizes on long term relationships with the patients, their families, communities, or caregiver; lasting from months to years (Kangovi et al. 2013). Even as they encounter hundreds of patients weekly on an episodic (less than a day), face-to-face or over the telephone, the rapport they create promotes the chances of consultations even when the hospital stay is over (Bardsley, Blunt, Davies, & Dixon, 2013). During the encounter with patients, the ambulatory care nurse focuses on the safety of the patient and the quality of the nurse care given. This is achieved by applying the appropriate nursing interventions like understanding the needs of patients, the procedures performed, and assisting the patients to navigate the healthcare system while evaluating the patient outcome. In conclusion, to keep in touch with the patient after a face to face encounter, the ambulatory nurse uses a variety of telecommunication strategies and continues offering healthcare services.
Reference
Bardsley, M., Blunt, I., Davies, S., & Dixon, J. (2013). Is secondary preventive care improving? An observational study of 10-year trends in emergency admissions for conditions amenable to ambulatory care. BMJ Open, 3(1), e002007. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2012-002007
Fajardo, M., Kim, S. H., & Szabo, R. M. (2012). The incidence of carpal tunnel release: trends and implications within the United States ambulatory care setting. The Journal of hand surgery, 37(8), 1599-1605.
Haas, S. A., & Swan, B. A. (2014). Developing the value proposition for registered nurse care coordination and transition management role in ambulatory care settings. Nursing economic$, 32(2).
Kangovi, S., Barg, F. K., Carter, T., Long, J. A., Shannon, R., & Grande, D. (2013). Understanding why patients of low socioeconomic status prefer hospitals over ambulatory care. Health Affairs, 32(7), 1196-1203.
