NPs are educated to diagnose and treat common illness, both acute and chronic. NPs also emphasize health promotion and illness prevention in their practices. Generally, NPs practice in a primary care setting, but some choose to provide services to patients in specialty practices, such as allergy, cardiology, or women's health. The rules do not require the continuous and constant physical presence of the supervising physician, but do require the physicians to visit the nurse practitioner's practice site every 30 days and review a minimum of 20 percent of the patie nt charts. We recommend that the NP and supervising MD develop a specific plan for their collaboration on patient care when medically indicated.
Many practices also implement quality assurance processes for random reviewing of patient charts.
Then, based on developed outcome criteria, continuous quality improvement can be achieved. There are several texts that describe easy to follow formats for writing protocols. One available text is Nurse Practitioner Protocols 1995, Second Edition, M.M. Cohen and A. Lanigan, available from Sunbelt Medical Publishers, P.O. Box 13512 Dept. G59, Tallahassee, Florida 32317-3512. Members of T NA save 30 percent or more off the list price. Current salary ranges vary and may be available at the TNA office.