Dr. Hartman Contributes Chapter to Book on NPs and PAs

As the number of nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) working in acute care settings continues to increase, the need for guidance on how best to integrate and optimize these types of providers is becoming more apparent. School of Nursing Clinical Assistant Professor Dr. Laurie Hartman has collaborated on a recently published book addressing this issue, entitled, “Integrating Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants into the ICU: Strategies for Optimizing Contributions to Care.” The book was published earlier this year by the Society of Critical Care Medicine.

 

Given the various responsibilities of healthcare providers, such as nurses and attending physicians, working in the rapidly changing intensive care unit (ICU) environment, NPs and PAs can fill an essential role within the critical care team. “NPs and PAs are a set of highly trained providers who are equipped to manage acutely changing situations and who can make important clinical decisions in collaboration with physicians and also provide mentoring to the bedside nurse,” explained Dr. Hartman. “The NP and PA are the continuity for the unit. They’re there all the time keeping an eye on the patient.”

 

Dr. Hartman’s chapter contribution to the book, entitled, “Forming Centers for Advanced Practice,” was written in collaboration with individuals from two other healthcare centers: Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Duke University Hospital. Their chapter offers insight into how a medical center can develop a resource or department to coordinate and oversee advance practice providers in the critical care setting in order to ensure quality, competence, and cost efficiency.

 

“Each of us has a different model around how advanced practice groups are organized,” said Dr. Hartman of her co-authors and the institutions they represent. For example, both Vanderbilt and Duke use a centralized process to support the NPs and PAs working in their ICUs. U-M Health System, however, does not. “In our institution, our process is very decentralized,” said Dr. Hartman of UMHS. “Advanced practice nurses and physician assistants are hired by each department without any unifying body to organize that.”

 

Instead, Dr. Hartman and lead physician assistant Marc Moote work with each department without representing a separate department themselves. “We serve to provide a guiding standard and resource for departments to better understand how to use NPs and PAs, how the law relates to them, and what their standards are about patient care,” she said.