Nursing: Direct and Indirect Nurse Administrators

There are different roles that are performed by healthcare providers, and the roles relate to the specifics of work and profession. As such, the role of indirect care provider can include administrating, informing, or educating, whereas direct care provider roles are confined to nursing practitioners who are involved in adult therapy, gerontology, or family therapy. In order to understand the specifics of each of the responsibilities and highlight the differences between those, it is essential to focus on the essence of their profession, skills, and the target audience they serve.

As it was briefly mentioned, the indirect care provider can perform the role of a nurse administrator, nurse informaticist, and nurse educator. To begin with, the indirect practice role is associated with graduates who are not involved in direct healthcare settings, including nursing administration. Those practicing roles with MSN are able to provide the direct nursing practice: nursing. The administrator, therefore, should focus on managing, monitoring, and controlling the performance of procedures and quality of healthcare services provided by the staff. They should also be working with the staff, to motivate them and trace the effectiveness of their work. The task of informacists is to inform, distribute, and spread the knowledge and data about the most recent changes in the sphere of nursing, healthcare and medical development. Finally, the role of nurse educator is to develop effective programs and training courses for nurses and the rest of the staff and ensure high-level acquisition of experiences, as well as professional advancement.

The role of direct practice nursing is confined to delivering assistance and help to patient care employees, such as family nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives, and nurse anesthetists, and clinical nurse professionals. The direct practice nursing introduces the complete program with the emphasis made on direct patient care. The medical student, therefore, is expected to go through the clinical practices, in addition to the hours which are used to focus on the patient analysis.

The major difference between direct and indirect healthcare providers consists in the object and functions that they have. For instance, the indirect care services refer to the management and evaluation of staff work and performance, whereas direct healthcare services refer to patients and evidence based research. In this respect, direct care services imply health services which are presented directly to an individual. These services can include nursing care, physical therapy, and doctors’ sessions. Direct providers, therefore, work in a range of settings, including public health clinics, hospitals, and client’s home itself. The personnel can also offer these types of services to the nurses and the patient directly (Maurer & Smith, 2013). In contrast, indirect healthcare services imply the ones that are non-personally received by the individual, but they still affect monitoring, regulation, and control of environmental risks, as well as the inspection of public-use facilities. In this respect, health is affected by the pollution of food and water, which is often predetermined by community planning decisions and a range of hospitals and equipment proposed in those facilities. The difference is that many indirect healthcare providers are aware of these facts, unlike the direct nursing practitioners who are more involved into the patient treatment itself (Maurer & Smith, 2013). Direct healthcare roles and services are presented in the two-fold system in the United States and are divided into private and public healthcare providers. As such, the private sector mainly consists of private institutions, both governmental and non-governmental. In most cases, private organizations offer direct services to U.S. citizens who pay, both directly and through the third party. In contrast, the public sector is composed of the services offered by public organizations or funds (Maurer & Smith, 2013). Services are delivered through certain types of organizational agencies. The public sector deals with both indirect and direct services, and is involved in providing care for those who are not able to pay for it.

Whether nurse practitioners are involved in direct or indirect roles, they should still adhere to specific rules, ethical standards, and codes of conduct. As such, nurses in public sector have specific leadership and practice responsibilities, as presented in specific attention to welfare, protection, and commitment to patients’ needs and concerns. It also includes delivery of high-quality services. The healthcare services should also enable nurses with the evidence-based practices and code rules (Bennet, 2015). These are the major similarities which should be considered. Furthermore, nursing care aims to promote, defend, restore, and improve health conditions. Some roles should also go through direct responsibilities, whereas others rely more on education and information distribution.

When referring to direct nursing competencies, there is also the list of strict responsibilities, skills, and experiences. As an example, the adult gerontology primary care involves a list of responsibilities, such as the delivery of adult healthcare, education of nurse practitioners, accreditation of the nursing staff, licensing of APRN, employment of gerontology nursing staff, and credentialing the nursing programs. The validation of these tests should also be a part of any organization that strives to enroll a highly-qualified staff. The validation process is also a similar procedure to both direct and indirect nursing practitioners. It also checks for the availability and the level of professionalism, skills, and proficiency. Such an approach is also among the similarities which are common for all of the practitioners involved into the process of delivering and controlling quality healthcare to the patients. However, the essence of test and the set of skills required differ significantly (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2010). For instance, a direct nurse practitioners, such as family therapist should learn more about psychological approaches, collaboration and communication techniques, whereas nurse educator should be more competent in searching, delivering, and explaining the new, pertinent information to the staff to sustain the changes and make the rest of the staff adjust them to the healthcare delivery process. All of these activities are connected, which implies that indirect and direct practitioners should cooperate for cultivating healthy, motivating, and comfortable environment both for nurses, physicians, and patients. This system of distributing knowledge and services could also become a new method of improving the quality of healthcare, advancing the health conditions, and attaining trust and approval on the part of the clients (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2010). The clinical trials should also be supported by both indirect and direct nurses who should be more concerned with the novelties and innovative techniques in the sphere of treatment and medication experiments.

In conclusion, the nursing practitioner roles are different in terms of the responsibilities, skills, and services provided. Hence, the role of direct health care provider is meant to deal with the patients and individuals and focus on different age categories and communities. It makes them divide into adult physicians, family therapists or podiatrists. In contrast, indirect healthcare providers deal with the control and monitoring of the quality of the service provided and relate to the improvement of the working conditions, equipment, and cooperation with other organizations. Indirect providers work predominantly in public spheres, where direct healthcare providers deal with the private sector mostly. Nonetheless, both direct and indirect provider must cooperate and establish partnership for the sake of insuring the highest quality of healthcare services. Such a system is the key to successful management of the nursing sphere.

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