Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Speaker A: Benvenute e benvenutia Podcast Nursing La serie podcast realizzata ne lambito della settione nursing del Universita di Genova Sono nemaria bagnasco cuesti pod caste suno dedicati etemi del dibatito scientifico e contemporaneo sul infirmieristica da removoce a infirmier italiane Internazionali.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: Hello, my name is Thomas Kearns. I'm a professor of nursing and I'm a visiting professor here at the University of Genova in Italy. I'm honored to be invited to deliver this podcast on advanced practice nursing. From my perspective, I believe that nursing involves an interdependent relationship between nursing theory, nursing research, politics and health policy, health economics, clinical practice. And to drive and deliver the integration of these important variables, we need strong, accountable professional leadership, from the bedside to the boardroom. Critical to my talk to you today is looking at how advancing nursing and advancing nursing practice can deliver across all of these agendas for nursing and indeed for those we serve, the patients, the public.
So I contend that if we strengthen the education and training of nurses and strengthen their scope of practice in advancing care and advancing nursing practice, we can deliver theoretically framed, research orientated, politically and economically focused clinical practice.
So my presentation today focuses on integrating the health policy agenda, be it a health policy agenda in Liguria, in Italy, in Europe, or further afield in that the regulatory agenda, an educational agenda, a practice agenda and an economic agenda. And I'm contending that to deliver health policy locally, regionally, nationally, and by health policy I mean the key points that are critical for any government or any governance of our health system, such as the non communicable disease agenda. Dealing with cancers, dealing with patients with cardiovascular health, dealing with patients with mental health problems. For us to deliver effectively on that agenda requires a reorientation of our health services to strengthen the scope of practice of nurses so that we as nurses working in advanced practice can support our governments, can support our health services, and critically can support our people, our communities, our families in terms of delivering on this policy agenda.
So if we want nursing to strengthen its contribution to dealing with the non communicable disease agenda, to dealing with the challenges that every health service in Europe faces, then we need to strengthen the preparation and education and scope of practice of nurses.
To do that, we need a reformation and a reorientation of a regulatory agenda, the agenda that enables nurses to work in an ethical way and to a determined legal scope of practice, but that Regulatory agenda also requires the capacity of the regulator to be responsive to changes in educational needs to ensure that delivery on advanced practice and deliver an advanced scope of practice, that our nurses are educated at the correct level. To deliver on such an agenda and linked to that agenda requires a reformation of our educational system, the expansion of educational programs regionally across our countries and across Europe and beyond to deliver nurses who have the capability and the competence to deliver evidence informed care, evidence informed nursing care, to an advanced scope of practice to deliver that policy agenda. So for nurses to contribute to delivering on a health policy agenda, we need better regulation and we need higher standards of education so that these nurses can work to the maximum of their license, to the maximum of their scope of practice.
And that's where we integrate policy and the education and regulatory agenda to the practice agenda. The reality is that every day you, as nurses in your practice setting, are working towards delivering on the health policy agenda in your area.
So if you're working with older people, if you're working with people with mental health problems, if you're working with people who have non communicable diseases, cardiovascular health problems, cancer, you are actually working with, to deliver from your perspective, the policy agenda of the Italian government and of the Irish government, in my case, so critical for that to be achieved is your realization of the important role you play as nurses in clinical practice, not just as clinicians, but as people who deliver on the health policy agenda.
Furthermore, the, the economic agenda and the health economic agenda is critical from our perspective.
Understanding the value of nursing care, understanding the valuable contribution of advanced practice is critical. Putting a cost and therefore a benefit on what we as nurses do in terms of practice and what advanced practice nurses do specifically is critical because to deliver a professional agenda for advanced practice, we, we need to consider the economic agenda associated with health. And providing quality patient care is expensive.
But I argue, and I contend that advanced practice is good value for money because it delivers effective, economical care by nurses at the lowest point of entry in terms of where people want to be cared for.
So if we are arguing for strengthening advanced practice nursing in Italy or in Ireland, we have to take cognizance of the economic agenda, the value for money agenda. And we need to be able to put a cost on and critically a value on the contribution that nurses working in all settings, but especially in advance care provide. Because at the end of the day, it is governments, it is the Ministry for Health, it is organizations like that that actually fund our national public health services. And because money is always, there's never enough money, there's never enough funds. We must be able to make sure that we can clearly articulate that there are explicit, tangible outcomes in relation to introducing advanced practice that has a specific return on investment.
So, to conclude, I contend that if you want to integrate a health policy agenda, a regulatory agenda, an educational agenda, an economic agenda within the practice setting that nurses work in, we have a clear evidence, informed, irrefutable evidence base to support the introduction of advanced practice in your services and mine, for the better of health outcomes in our populations, in our communities, and in our families.
Thank you.
[00:07:57] Speaker A: Podecast Nursing affrontal adornamento scientifico continuane internazionale e promo vela cultura e la conochenza del nursing una producione unijaradio.
