The Healthcare Leadership Experience is hosted by Lisa Miller for health leaders who want to think differently and learn how to improve their performance. On this episode, Jim Cagliostro is joined by Walter ‘’Buddy’’ Elliott, a nurse practitioner for the phase one cancer clinical research program for Hackensack Meridian Health, to explore the reality of life as a nurse practitioner.
Episode Introduction
The role of a nurse practitioner has changed in recent years. In this episode, Jim Cagliostro, VIE’s Clinical Operations Performance Improvement Expert, interviewed Walter ‘’Buddy’’ Elliott to discuss the benefits of previous ‘’hands-on’’ nursing experience for nurse practitioners, the critical role they play in enhancing the patient experience, and the support they offer physicians.
Show Topics
• ‘’Bedside nursing’’ experience is essential for nurse practitioners
• Identifying prospective patients for clinical trials
• The indepth knowledge required of cancer studies
• From cost savings to better patient care
• Drawing on the expertise of more experienced nurses
• Nurse practitioners enhance the patient experience
• Achieving formal qualifications through multiple routes
Show Links
04:35 ‘’Bedside nursing’’ experience is essential for nurse practitioners
Based on his personal experience, Walter said hands-on nursing care provides vital experience for nurse practitioners.
‘’I definitely feel it is essential as a nurse practitioner to have had experience in nursing because as a floor nurse, you have increased access to being able to see how care is carried out. From the orders that are placed and the management of the patients' care, being able to watch a patient's vitals and how a patient is reacting to a certain treatment and being that first line of being able to counter anything that would be negatively impacting the patient. Being able to have the access of seeing multiple different types of disease processes and modalities of care, I think definitely increases the experience for a nurse practitioner to be able to draw off of. So I definitely feel it is important to have had a couple of years or more of nursing, hands-on nursing care, before pursuing nurse practitioner roles just because it allows you to have that experience.’’
06:21 Identifying prospective patients for clinical trials
Walter outlined his involvement as a nurse practitioner in identifying patients for clinical trials.
‘’Well speaking for myself personally, in research, my role as the nurse practitioner whenever a prospective patient is identified or referred to our program, my job is to help identify the appropriate enrolling study for their disease process and then to help evaluate their eligibility based off the criteria of the prospective trial. We work primarily in solid tumors so anything such as non-small cell lung cancer, colorectal cancer, those being examples of disease processes that we see, I help look at what's available for them because trials open and close based off of how many they've been able to enroll in a cohort and then I can say, "We have these three open trials that would be available for you. We would like you to review the consent, the process, of what you would be undertaking in this clinical trial." And then meet back up with the patient in the screening process to determine whether they would like to sign and then go on from there.’’
08:18 The indepth knowledge required of cancer studies
Walter outlined the complex nature of working as a nurse practitioner on cancer treatment trials.
‘’I definitely feel now that there are a number of different roles that a nurse practitioner is able to help fill. The research role is in and of itself a different avenue that beforehand I wasn't aware of but intrigued me as I became more aware of what the position entailed, mainly because of the in-depth knowledge that's required of the available studies. What the study is comprised of, what the treatment modality is, what's being investigated, what criteria has been set up to find a patient. Sometimes there can be a criteria that's very restrictive and it's only a very small subset of people with a particular disease process that would be eligible for. Sometimes they're any and all solid tumors that come in and so just being able to know what each study entails is essential for my role. And then being able to understand how that study would impact the patient and identify any issues that could arise during their care.’’
12:11 From cost savings to better patient care
Jim said that the role of nurse practitioner leads to fewer emergency room visits and more cost effective treatment.
‘’In recent research that I've done and I've been talking with some of our clients, the studies have shown that nurse practitioners, and it's pretty obvious most people would know this, that nurse practitioners cost healthcare systems less. They're less expensive to see for the patient and for the healthcare system, so