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When nurses, physicians and other health professionals overcome professional barriers and work together, patients--and provider--benefit.

This article discusses APRNs working in Title X Family Planning Clinics, what lead them to practice in these clinics, and why they remain practicing in these clinics as new opportunities for APRNs arise. APRNs are described by the authors as 'critical safety nets', as they play a major role in reproductive health services and provide care to vulnerable populations and rural communities. The findings of this study, which collected data through an online survey, can and will be used during policy change decisions to improve APRN satisfaction and retention.

The National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) is a not-for-profit organization whose purpose is to provide an organization through which boards of nursing act and counsel together on matters of common interest and concern affecting the public health, safety and welfare, including the development of licensing examinations in nursing. This includes the APRN Consensus movement. This website has multitudes of information related to APRN practice; as we get closer to the F2F classes in October, this will become a more valuabel resource.

Approximately 70 to 80% of healthcare errors are due to poor team communication and understanding. High-risk environments such as the trauma setting (which covers a broad spectrum of departments in acute services) are where the majority of these errors occur. Despite the emphasis on interprofessional collaborative practice and patient safety, interprofessional teamworking in the trauma setting has received little attention.

Interdisciplinary teamwork across industries

The author figures out the challenges in interdisciplinary teamwork among healthcare providers. These challenges are worth attention if we hope to do well in interdisciplinary teamwork.

This article discusses how interdisciplinary teamwork is experienced at three levels: healthcare professionals, patients, and healthcare organizations.

The points made by the author - reaching decisions collectively, making sure everyone is committed to the same purpose and goal, full participation, understanding the work of other disciplines - can be applied in any type of teamwork setting for successful outcomes. However, with healthcare the author points out that effective teamwork can lead to decreasing health care costs, improved patient safety, and decreasing workload through shared responsibilities. All areas that can allow for better patient care and more efficient use of time and financial resources.

This article describes past and current barriers to APRN prescribing abilities in the state of Georgia. While legislation has been passed in the state to allow APRN's to prescribe medications to their patients under a collaborating physician, Georgia remains one of the most restrictive states for APRN prescribing. A descriptive study was conducted to analyze the efficacy and safety of APRN prescribing and found that out of approximately 8000 prescriptions written by APRNs, only 0.003% of those were changed by the supervising physician. The study recommended that more data be collected to support the argument for full-prescriptive authority for APRNs in Georgia.

Dawley clearly outlines the critical role birth centers and home birth during the 1930's and 1940's played in the developed of our current professional midwifery culture.