The hospital nurse practitioner in pediatrics. A new expanded role for staff nurses.

The Hospital Nurse Practitioner Program in Pediatrics at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver, prepared staff nurses for a new and expanded role as health care providers in hospital settings. With the use of their increased skills and greater decision-making responsibilities, hospital nurse practitioners admitted patients to the hospital, assessed both the initial clinical status and subsequent changes in the patient's condition, wrote relevant orders, performed a variety of technical procedures (including many previously reserved to house staff and other physicians), ordered and interpreted laboratory studies, counseled patients and families, discharged patients, and provided other traditional nurse practitioner skills. Hospital nurse practitioners had an improved collaborative relationship with physicians. This program showed that hospital nurse practitioners can be as significant in affecting the health care that patients receive on the general units of hospitals, as are nurse practitioners who deliver care and services to ambulatory patients.