Exploring Clinical Nurse Specialist Impact in Primary Health Care: Exemplars From a Student's Clinical Practice

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES

Primary healthcare (PHC) is a clinical frontier full of opportunities for clinical nurse specialists (CNSs) to improve population outcomes, facilitate smooth care transitions, and overcome challenges through a unique lens. Clinical nurse specialist practice in primary care is exceedingly rare, and there is a paucity of literature on the topic. This article provides exemplary projects implemented by a CNS student in a primary care clinic.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT/PROGRAM

Primary healthcare has been described as the "front door" of the health system. It has increasingly relied on nursing to deliver health services, yet PHC and nursing practice in this setting remain poorly defined. Clinical nurse specialists are well-positioned to define these concepts, standardize processes used to deliver services, and impact patient outcomes in PHC. The CNS student successfully supported a primary care clinic in these activities.

OUTCOME

Reviewing the impact of the CNS student's experience offers a better understanding of CNS practice in PHC.

CONCLUSION

Gaps exist in the literature regarding best practices and care delivery in PHC. Clinical nurse specialists are educationally prepared to address these gaps and improve patient outcomes at the health system's "front door." Utilizing a CNS's unique skill set achieves cost-effective and efficient healthcare delivery in a new way that bolsters the strategy of utilizing nurse practitioners to meet the challenge of provider shortages.

Exploring behaviors, treatment beliefs, and barriers to oral chemotherapy adherence among adult leukemia patients in a rural outpatient setting

Objective

Adherence to oral chemotherapy is essential for patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) and multiple myeloma (MM) to remain in remission. Few studies have used a Likert-type scale to measure medication adherence in CML and MM patients. We applied a validated treatment adherence tool, the ASK-12 (Adherence Starts with Knowledge^®) survey, which assessed inconvenience and forgetfulness, treatment beliefs, and medication-taking behaviors recorded on a five-point Likert-type scale at two visits.

Results

A medication adherence survey was administered to 42 newly diagnosed or pre-existing CML or MM patients at two outpatient oncology clinics affiliated with an academic medical center in rural eastern North Carolina. Thirty-one patients completed surveys at visit 1 and visit 2 (median 4.5 months apart). Most patients were treated for MM (65%), were non-Hispanic black (68%) and female (58%). Within subscales, mean adherence scores decreased between visits, signaling better adherence. Overall, visit scores were correlated (0.63, p = 0.001). Forgetting to take medication sometimes was the most common reason for non-adherence. Medication costs were not a barrier for MM patients. Greater patient–provider informed decision-making was identified as an opportunity for quality improvement among CML patients. The ASK-12 survey provided a strategy to obtain robust information on medication adherence.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (10.1186/s13104-018-3935-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Care Coordination: Overcoming Barriers to Improve Outcomes for Patients With Hematologic Malignancies in Rural Settings

BACKGROUND

Most patients with cancer experience financial, emotional, and logistical barriers to care that significantly affect their adherence to and successful completion of treatment. However, patients with hematologic malignancies, particularly those who live in rural settings, must also contend with additional challenges.

OBJECTIVES

This article aims to synthesize the literature about barriers to timely access to care and to coordination of this care for patients with hematologic malignancies, particularly those in rural settings, as well as identify strategies to improve cancer care delivery for those patients.

METHODS

A search of the literature from 2008-2018 pertaining to rural health disparities for patients with hematologic malignancies, along with ways to overcome these disparities, was conducted.

FINDINGS

Patients with hematologic malignancies, particularly those who reside in rural settings, face complex barriers to care. These barriers cause emotional and physical distress. A team approach to care coordination that is focused on eliminating these barriers and improving outcomes is needed.