Marketing nursing in a nurse practitioner practice

Using patient-centered interviewing skills to manage complex patient encounters in primary care

PURPOSE

To describe effective and efficient patient-centered interviewing strategies to enhance the management of complex primary care patient encounters.

DATA SOURCES

Research literature and applied case study analysis.

CONCLUSIONS

Patient-centered interviewing can enhance effectiveness of care in complex patient encounters. A relatively small investment of time and energy has positive yields in regard to improvements in longer term physiological status, treatment adherence, quality of life, patient-provider working relationship, and patient and nurse practitioner satisfaction.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE

Use of patient-centered interviewing strategies can enhance effectiveness of patient care processes and outcomes while retaining efficiency of patient management.

Understanding occupational therapy: nursing and physician assistant students' knowledge about occupational therapy

The purpose of this study was to discover whether nursing and physician's assistant students at a large Midwestern university get a sufficient overview in their professional curriculums about the role of occupational therapy and its implications in healthcare services. These professionals play an important role in the prescription of occupational therapy (OT). Attempts at targeting these populations for marketing the OT profession and increasing the awareness of its various roles is of critical value to the OT profession. This study involved a two part survey consisted of scaled and open-ended questions asking what the students know about OT, how they learned about the profession, and a checklist testing their actual knowledge level about occupational therapy's role in the healthcare system. Correlation between section one and section two of the survey was done to understand whether students who believe they are educated about the role of OT are in fact knowledgeable about the profession. Even though a low positive correlation was found between the physician assistant students' perceived knowledge of OT and their actual knowledge, the results were not statistically significant. It was also found that most students in both the nursing and physician's assistant curriculums responded to occupational therapy's role within a very narrow scope, consisting of mainly activities of daily living (ADLs). The authors emphasize the need for targeting other health professions for marketing OT.