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Limited knowledge about the nursing workforce in New Zealand general practice inhibits the optimal use of nurses in this increasingly complex setting. Using workforce survey data published biennially by the Nursing Council of New Zealand, this study describes the characteristics of nurses in general practice and contrasts them with the greater nursing workforce, including consideration of changes in the profiles between 2015 and 2019. The findings suggest the general practice nursing workforce is older, less diverse, more predominately New Zealand trained and very much more likely to work part-time than other nurses. There is evidence that nurses in general practice are increasingly primary health care focused, as they take on expanded roles and responsibilities. However, ambiguity about terminology and the inability to track individuals in the data are limitations of this study. Therefore, it was not possible to identify and describe cohorts of nurses in general practice by important characteristics, such as prescribing authority, regionality and rurality. A greater national focus on defining and tracking this pivotal workforce is called for to overcome role confusion and better facilitate the use of nursing scopes of practice.

Nurses represent the largest occupational group of health care professionals in Australia. The ratio of nurses to population is relatively consistent, unlike other health care professional groups (including medical doctors and allied health staff) whose numbers decline as population density and distance from metropolitan areas increases. Nurses working in areas where other health care professionals are limited or absent have expanded scopes of practice with their work being more generalist than specialist. The role of nurses in remote and isolated areas of Queensland, Australia was the focus of a commissioned multi-case research project. Findings reported in this paper relate to the position of registered nurses as part of an interprofessional team. These findings indicated that, in some instances, local health care teams were limited to a single nurse and Indigenous health care worker/s, while in others the teams were more diverse. In all cases collegial support was available either locally or via telecommunication technology. Understanding the role of each team member, having useful strategies to enhance communication and work collaboratively were identified as essential criteria for "good practice".

Aim: To explain the process by which nurses' roles are negotiated in general practice. Background: Primary care nurses do important work within a social model of health to meet the needs of the populations they serve. Latterly, in the face of increased demand and workforce shortages, they are also taking on more medical responsibilities through task‐shifting. Despite the increased complexity of their professional role, little is known about the processes by which it is negotiated. Design: Constructivist grounded theory. Methods: Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 22 participants from 17 New Zealand general practices between December 2020 and January 2022. Due to COVID‐19, 11 interviews were via Zoom™. Concurrent data generation and analysis, using the constant comparative method and common grounded theory methods, identified the participants' main concern and led to the construction of a substantive explanatory theory around a core category. Results: The substantive explanatory theory of creating place proposes that the negotiation of nurse roles within New Zealand general practice is a three‐stage process involving occupying space, positioning to do differently and leveraging opportunity. Nurses and others act and interact in these stages, in accordance with their conceptualizations of need‐responsive nursing practice, towards the outcome defining place. Defining place conceptualizes an accommodation between the values beliefs and expectations of individuals and pre‐existing organizational norms, in which individual and group‐normative concepts of need‐responsive nursing practice are themselves developed. Conclusion: The theory of creating place provides new insights into the process of nurses' role negotiation in general practice. Findings support strategies to enable nurses, employers and health system managers to better negotiate professional roles to meet the needs of the populations they serve, while making optimum use of nursing skills and competencies. Implications for the Profession and/or Patient Care: Findings can inform nurses to better negotiate the complexities of the primary care environment, balancing systemic exigencies with the health needs of populations. Impact: What Problem Did the Study Address?: In the face of health inequity, general practice nurses in New Zealand, as elsewhere, are key to meeting complex primary health needs.There is an evidence gap regarding the processes by which nurses' roles are negotiated within provider organizations.A deeper understanding of such processes may enable better use of nursing skills to address unmet health need. What Were the Main Findings?: Nurses' roles in New Zealand general practice are determined through goal‐driven negotiation in accordance with individual concepts of need‐responsive nursing practice. Individuals progress from occupying workspaces defined by the care‐philosophies of others to defining workplaces that incorporate their own professional beliefs, values and expectations.Negotiation is conditional upon access to role models, scheduled dialogue with mentors and decision‐makers, and support for safe practice.Strong clinical and organizational governance and individuals' own positive personal self‐efficacy are enablers of effective negotiation. Where and on Whom Will the Research Have Impact?: The theory of Creating Space can inform organizational and individual efforts to advance the roles of general practice nurses to meet the health needs of their communities.General practice organizations can provide safe, supported environments for effective negotiation; primary care leaders can promote strong governance and develop individuals' sense of self‐efficacy by involving them in key decisions.Nurses themselves can use the theory as a framework to support critical reflection on how to engage in active negotiation of their professional roles. Reporting Method: The authors adhered to relevant EQUATOR guidelines using the COREQ reporting method. Patient or Public Contribution: Researchers and participants currently working in general practice were involved in the development of this study. By the process of theoretical sampling and constant comparison, participants' comments helped to shape the study design. What Does this Paper Contribute to the Wider Global Clinical Community?: An understanding of the processes by which health professionals negotiate their roles is important to support them to meet the challenges of increased complexity across all health sectors globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Medical home models of care, including Australia's Health Care Homes, have the potential to improve health service delivery. This qualitative study explored the primary healthcare experience of people living with chronic conditions in a regional community. The study aim was to use consumer perspectives to inform the further development of a medical home-type model for regional Australia. Participants were recruited from the emergency department of a north Queensland hospital. Twenty-one adults (aged ≥18 years) participated in interviews, using a semi-structured schedule. Inductive, deductive and abductive analyses were guided by grounded theory methods. Participants were committed to an individual GP, rather than a practice organisation. This finding has implications for medical homes, as individuals may choose not to access team-based practice care. Most participants perceived they currently received high-quality GP care, although challenges were identified. These challenges included disconnected after-hours care and uncertainty around the cost of care. Those living with complex, uncommon, chronic conditions felt the most disenfranchised from existing care models, and could benefit from increased engagement with a medical home-type model. Strengthening the continuity of care between GPs both within and outside the practice may enhance service delivery. Involving consumers in the design of care models supports health services that are fit-for-purpose. Medical home models of care, including Australia's Health Care Homes, have the potential to improve health service delivery. This consumer perspective study identified opportunities to improve model implementation, finding that those with uncommon chronic conditions may benefit the most. Learning from consumers supports policymakers, service providers and healthcare practitioners in the delivery of person-centred primary healthcare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Explore factors that influence presentation at a regional hospital ED and identify opportunities to reduce attendance, particularly for adults with chronic conditions. Methods: Cross‐sectional survey of ED attenders, for 1 month period (March to April 2014), with linkage of survey data to administrative data sets. Results: A total of 1000 adults completed the survey of which 549 (54.9%) self‐identified as living with a chronic condition. Over half (n = 572, 57.2%) had their presenting problem for less than 24 h prior to attending the ED and 56.8% (n = 568) attended the ED outside working hours. Most ED presentations were recorded in the administrative data set as self‐referred (n = 933, 93.3%); however, 29% (n = 290) of survey participants reported being referred to the ED by a medical practitioner. The majority of adults had a regular general practice (n = 863, 86.3%) with 30% (n = 258) visiting their practice in the week prior to presentation at the ED. Awareness of services such as the 13‐Health telephone advice line was generally low (n = 370, 37%) and most did not consider alternative health services as suitable for their care. High‐quality care, co‐location of diagnostic services and extended hours of service were important to patients. Conclusion: Despite being connected to a general practice, people focussed their health‐seeking behaviour on the ED in the immediate period prior to presentation. Patients reported a limited awareness of alternative health services and opportunities exist to potentially reduce ED attendance, particularly for young and middle‐aged adults with chronic conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Better systems of care are required to address chronic disease in Indigenous people to ensure they can access all their care needs. Health research has produced evidence about effective models of care and chronic disease strategies to address Indigenous health, however the transfer of research findings into routine clinical practice has proven challenging. Complex interventions, such as those related to chronic disease, have many components that are often poorly implemented and hence rarely achieve implementation fidelity. Implementation fidelity is "the degree to which programs are implemented as intended by the program developer". Knowing if an intervention was implemented as planned is fundamental to knowing what has contributed to the success of an intervention.Methods: The aim of this study is to adapt the implementation fidelity framework developed by Keith et al. and apply it to the intervention implemented in phase 1 of the Getting Better at Chronic Care in North Queensland study. The objectives are to quantify the level of implementation fidelity achieved during phase 1 of the study, measure the association between implementation fidelity and health outcomes and to explore the features of the primary health care system that contributed to improved health outcomes. A convergent parallel mixed methods study design will be used to develop a process for assessing implementation fidelity. Information collected via a questionnaire and routine data generated during phase 1 of the study will be used to explain the context for the intervention in each site and develop an implementation fidelity score for each component of the intervention. A weighting will be applied to each component of the intervention to calculate the overall implementation score for each participating community. Statistical analysis will assess the level of association between implementation fidelity scores and health outcomes.Discussion: Health services research seeks to find solutions to social and technical problems to improve health outcomes. The development of a tool and methodology for assessing implementation fidelity in the Indigenous primary health care context will help address some of the barriers to the translation of research into practice.Trial Registration: ACTRN12610000812099 : 29.9.2010. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creating a stable and sustainable health workforce in regional, rural and remote Australia has long been a challenge to health workforce planners, policy makers and researchers alike. Traditional health workforce planning is often reactive and assumes continuation of current patterns of healthcare utilisation. This demonstration project in Far North Queensland exemplifies how participatory regional health workforce planning processes can accurately model current and projected local workforce requirements. The recent establishment of Primary Health Networks (PHNs) with the intent to commission health services tailored to individual healthcare needs underlines the relevance of such an approach. This study used action research methodology informed by World Health Organization (WHO) systems thinking. Four cyclical stages of health workforce planning were followed: needs assessment; health service model redesign; skills-set assessment and workforce redesign; and development of a workforce and training plan. This study demonstrated that needs-based loco-regional health workforce planning can be achieved successfully through participatory processes with stakeholders. Stronger health systems and workforce training solutions were delivered by facilitating linkages and planning processes based on community need involving healthcare professionals across all disciplines and sectors. By focusing upon extending competencies and skills sets, local health professionals form a stable and sustainable local workforce. Concrete examples of initiatives generated from this process include developing a chronic disease inter-professional teaching clinic in a rural town and renal dialysis being delivered locally to an Aboriginal community. The growing trend of policy makers decentralising health funding, planning and accountability and rising health system costs increase the future utility of this approach. This type of planning can also assist the new PHNs to commission health services that meet the needs of the population and contribute to service and system improvement and innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at the Australian rural maternity services. The Australian Government shifted maternity services to a primary care model in 2009 because of inequities in maternity services experienced by pregnant women living in rural and remote areas. To address these issues and improve the quality of choices for rural women and their families, changes must be made to registration processes for nurses and midwives to accommodate the needs of clinicians employed in rural and remote settings.

hoare k.j., mills j. & francis k. (2011) The role of government policy in supporting nurse-led care in general practice in the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia: an adapted realist review. Journal of Advanced Nursing 68(5), 963-980. Abstract Aim. This article is a report on a review that examined the role of Government policy in primary care and its association with nurse-led care in the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia between 1998 and 2009. Background. The United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia share a similar model of first point access to the healthcare system via general practitioners. General practice is synonymous with the term primary care. Data sources. Medline, CINAHL, EMBASE, Scopus, PsychInfo, Google, Department of Health, England (United Kingdom), Ministry of Health, New Zealand, Department of Health and Ageing, Australia. Searches of electronic databases from 1998 to December 2009 and hand searches of identified leads and key journals. Historical papers accessed to describe the genesis of practice nursing and historical Government policy documents prior to 1998, were examined. Review methods. A modified realist review was used to synthesize research and policy documents relating to government policies pertaining to nurse-led care. In addition, a systematic review was used to identify literature that described practice nurse-led care. Results. Nurse-led primary care services are well described in the United Kingdom with a total of 45 studies meeting the inclusion criteria for the second review. There are no published studies from New Zealand, and only two from Australia describing nurse-led primary care. Conclusion. New Zealand and Australia lag behind the United Kingdom in practice nurse development. Implementation of clinical governance was fundamental to the development of nurse-led care in the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dewey first described reflective thought as a way to solve issues of perplexity in his seminal work How We Think. Dewey’s work underpinned Strauss’ contribution to The Discovery of Grounded Theory. Grounded theory methods are characterised by memo writing. This paper will describe how memos, in the form of slides, were employed to demonstrate advanced skill acquisition in practice by an immigrant nurse and health visitor to a panel convened by the New Zealand Nursing Council. Globalisation and migration of the nursing workforce contributes to advancement of the nursing profession in some countries. New Zealand, whose critical mass of primary health care nursing leaders is small, with no specific postgraduate primary health care qualification, benefit from the transferable skills of migrant nurse and community practitioners. Finding easier ways to demonstrate advanced practice to New Zealand’s Nursing Council would maximise the potential contribution of immigrant nurses. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Purpose This paper explores nurses' sources of knowledge for evidence-based practice, comparing rural/remote, urban and regional participants. Methods A cross-sectional survey of practice nurses in the state of Victoria was conducted in 2008. The instrument used was the Developing Evidence-based Practice Questionnaire - Au, distributed to a convenience sample of nurses with response of 590 (33%). Survey data were stratified by geographical location for this exploratory report. Results The sample was representative of practice nurses, with half employed in either regional or rural and remote areas. Rural and remote nurses were less qualified in nursing than urban nurses. However, rural, remote and regional nurses were significantly less likely to apply experiential knowledge as evidence and were more likely to source knowledge from clinical nurse specialists or nurse practitioners, local audit reports or articles in research and medical journals. Nurses in each work category reported in-service training, conferences and information shared by colleagues as important in developing their knowledge for practice. According to participants, evidence-based practice would be promoted by allocation of work time, education and training in research skills, and improved access to resources. Conclusions Rural and remote practice nurses prioritised the development of their skills in sourcing and appraising evidence for practice as a strategy to facilitate knowledge translation at the point of care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Al-Motlaq M, Mills J, Birks M, Francis K. International Journal of Nursing Practice 2010; 16: 472-477 How nurses address the burden of disease in remote or isolated areas in Queensland Nurses have a role in addressing the burden of disease in remote or isolated areas of Queensland. Activities to prevent chronic and acute disease and injury, while promoting a health lifestyle, are a part of nurses' work that help to meet the goal of keeping a population healthy. The findings presented in this paper, as part of a broader study into the role of nurses working in remote or isolated areas of Queensland, describe how registered nurse in these locations address local burden of disease. Participants discussed the increased workload that engaging in health promotion and disease prevention activities creates for them when providing health-care services for their communities. Establishing stronger working relationships with visiting members of the primary health-care team, while addressing organizational barriers, might have a significant impact on the nurses' ability to help reduce the burden of disease in these areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background The numbers of nurses in general practice in Australia tripled between 2004 and 2012. However, evidence on whether nursing care in general practice improves patient outcomes is scarce. Although patient satisfaction and enablement have been examined extensively as outcomes of general practitioner care, there is little research into these outcomes from nursing care in general practice. The aim of this study was to examine the relationships between specific general practice characteristics and nurse consultation characteristics, and patient satisfaction and enablement Methods A mixed methods study examined a cross-section of patients from 21 general practices in the Australian Capital Territory. The Patient Enablement and Satisfaction Survey was distributed to 1665 patients who received nursing care between September 2013 and March 2014. Grounded theory methods were used to analyse interviews with staff and patients from these same practices. An integrated analysis of data from both components was conducted using multilevel mixed effect models. Results Data from 678 completed patient surveys (response rate = 42%) and 48 interviews with 16 nurses, 23 patients and 9 practice managers were analysed. Patients who had longer nurse consultations were more satisfied (OR = 2.50, 95% CI: 1.43–4.35) and more enabled (OR = 2.55, 95% CI: 1.45–4.50) than those who had shorter consultations. Patients who had continuity of care with the same general practice nurse were more satisfied (OR = 2.31, 95% CI: 1.33–4.00) than those who consulted with a nurse they had never met before. Patients who attended practices where nurses worked with broad scopes of practice and high levels of autonomy were more satisfied (OR = 1.76, 95% CI: 1.09–2.82) and more enabled (OR = 2.56, 95% CI: 1.40–4.68) than patients who attended practices where nurses worked with narrow scopes of practice and low levels of autonomy. Patients who received nursing care for the management of chronic conditions (OR = 2.64, 95% CI: 1.32–5.30) were more enabled than those receiving preventive health care. Conclusions This study provides the first evidence of the importance of continuity of general practice nurse care, adequate time in general practice nurse consultations, and broad scopes of nursing practice and autonomy for patient satisfaction and enablement. The findings of this study provide evidence of the true value of enhanced nursing roles in general practice. They demonstrate that when the vision for improved coordination and multidisciplinary primary health care, including expanded roles of nurses, is implemented, high quality patient outcomes can be achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]