Nurses’ responsibilities are the same in that they support the physicians in rendering medical
assistant to patients, but the setting in which they do so, and their disciplines are different.
Different fields of nursing are: Registered, Cardiac, Certified Registered Nurse Anaesthetist, Clinical
Specialist, Critical Care, ER, Family Nurse Practitioner, Geriatric, Perioperative, Mental health,
Nurse Educator, Nurse Manager, Midwife, Practitioner, Administrator, Oncology, Orthopaedic,
Pediatric, Public Health, and Travel Nurses. All these disciplines require Nurses to perform different
task, and work with different types of technology. A Certified Nursing Assistant is responsible for
the monitoring of patient’s vital signs, and their hygiene. An LPN changes bandages, and collect
laboratory samples, a Registered Nurse assist with diagnostic testing and providing emotional
support. ER Nurses perform triage, record treatment and progress, and assist in consults. A Nurse
that works in a cancer treatment facility will know how to operate a dialysis machine, but not how
to set up an operating room for a procedure. A Nurse Anaesthetist can safely give aesthetic to a
patient but not know how to manage the software for physician’s schedule. Some Nurses are
directly involved in the treatment of the patient, others are versed in the documentation, and
tracking of the patient’s care plan. Medication administration and contraindications of drugs are
also different depending on the Nurse’s training. Not all Nurses are able to utilize Electronic Health
Records, In the clinics that I worked at the Nurses had no idea how to fully use the Armed Forces
Health Longitudinal Technology Application (AHLTA). This system was used for the charting of all
patient encounters, the only ones who utilized it was those who had direct interactions with
patients. Everyone new how to read the documents entered, but the specific ins ad out was
underutilized by some Nurses. AHLTA is being replaced by a server MHS GENESIS which as caused
a slowdown in patient care while the integration is being integrated. With this change everyone
who has anything to do with a patient interaction will have to have access and knowledge on its
operations. This has caused wait times on phones to be over 45 minutes to get an appointment,
longer times for documentation, and more user errors for submission of medication and labs.
Nurses have a countless number of responsibilities that surrounds patient care, but realistically
they are not all expected to be masters of every field. Just as surgeons and physicians specialize in
different fields, so does nurses. e e A nurse's role when working in a hospital, home health and/or
out-patient practice is primarily as a clinician with additional duties to document insurance
information and health care utilization. Primarily her/his role is to provide patient care. Along with
clinical care, registered nurses will provide intake and discharge of patients to and from the facility
and coordinate with specialists and social services. The claims examiner or health insurance
specialist (often with a clinical title) verify claims against third-party payer requirements to
authorize payment. They may refer the claim to an investigator for more scrutiny to make sure
that the billed costs are accurate. Often these roles are filled by RNs because the examiner must
determine if the treatments and procedures a patient receives are necessitated by the diagnosis.
Therefore, the examiner must have specific knowledge of medical procedures.
e e A health information manager working in a medical office may manage the practice as well as be
responsible for medical billing, coding, record keeping, and other medical office administrative
duties. However, a health information manager specializing in health data analysis might work for
a non-profit research centre, government agency, hospital, or private healthcare management
company that is interested in improving outcomes and controlling costs. The management of
information in this case may differ from the private medical office practice in the scope of data
analysis, such as focusing on factors like re-admittance rates to a hospital or length of patient stay
after a surgery or procedure. Health care data analysis for government or a research group may
want to look at long-term outcomes and health care expenditures. National health information
data collections compiled by government or research groups are comprised of health and
demographic data and allow states, healthcare management companies, and private industry to
plan and assess healthcare outcomes and make clinical decisions about best practices (McGrath, et
al, 2022). Staff at healthcare facilities routinely collect information about the services, patients’
health and the type of treatments and tests they receive in order to improve patient care (Leon, et
al, n.d.). Data analysis conducted for hospitals is often informed more by patients’ needs as
opposed to insurance companies and health management organizations that are interested
primarily in profits and growth.
References
Bowie, M. (2019). Essentials of Health Information Management: Principles and Practices. 4th
Edition. Cengage, Boston, MA. e
Leon, N., Leon, N., Balakrishna, Y., Hohlfeld, A., Odendaal, W. A., Schmidt, B.-M., Zweigenthal, V.,
Anstey Watkins, J., & Daniels, K. (n.d.). Routine Health Information System (RHIS) improvements
for strengthened health system management. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 8.
McGrath, N., Foley, B., Hurley, C., Ryan, M., & Flynn, R. (2022). A multi-method quality
improvement approach to systematically improve and promote the quality of national health and
social care information. Health Information Management Journal, 51 (1), 50–56. https://doi-
org.ezproxy.snhu.edu/10.1177/1833358320926422 Types of nursing specialties: 20 fast-growing
nursing fields. Types of Nurses: 20 Growing Nursing Specialties to Start Your Career. (n.d.).
Retrieved June 15, 2022, from https://www.gmercyu.edu/academics/learn/types-of-nurses
Rebecca LeBoeuf May 12, 2022, Jun 3, 2022 H., May 24, 2022 H., & May 17, 2022 H. (n.d.).
Infographic: 16 types of nurses including job descriptions and salary. Southern New Hampshire
University. Retrieved June 15, 2022, from https://www.snhu.edu/about-
us/newsroom/health/types-of-nurses-infographic
