Tine Hansen-Turton from the American National Nursing Centers
Consortium (NNCC) came to New Zealand as an Eisenhower Fellow in 2005,
visiting health organisations and experts around the country to research
the role of Nurse Practitioners in the public health infrastructure. She
has continued collaborating with likeminded New Zealand organisations,
and in January 2008 will return for the first Global Healthcare Solutions
to Vulnerable Populations Conference, which the NNCC has organised in
partnership with the Community Services Development Trust of New Zealand.
Eisenhower Fellowships alumna Tine Hansen-Turton
In 2005 I visited New Zealand as an Eisenhower Fellow with the objectives
of learning about the public health infrastructure in New Zealand, exchanging
ideas about the role of Nurse Practitioners in nurse-managed health centers,
and exploring the development of nurse-led care in New Zealand with the
country’s health care leaders.
Nurse Practitioners are experienced and educated expert practice nurses
who generally hold a Master’s degree. Like general practitioners,
Nurse Practitioners can provide primary care, health promotion and disease
prevention to all population groups, and in the US there are over 141,000
nurse practitioners serving as primary care providers for millions of
Americans.
Several positive outcomes have resulted from my Eisenhower Fellowship.
For example, New Zealand Nurse Practitioners now have prescriptive authority,
local District Health Boards (DHBs) are getting funding to establish nurse-managed
centers, and a new affiliate of the NNCC has been established, called
the New Zealand Nursing Centers Consortium.
However, while many positive outcomes have occurred, in order to ensure
the proper integration of the Nurse Practitioner’s role and nurse-managed
health centers in New Zealand as part of the country’s Primary Health
Care Strategy, the following areas still need to be addressed by the Ministry
of Health and Nursing Council of New Zealand to ensure success of the
strategy:
1) Nurse Practitioners must be integrated with Primary Health Organisations
(PHOs). Similarly, community service pilots should be developed to integrate
Nurse Practitioner service delivery in conjunction with both PHOs and
non-government organisations with a focus on vulnerable populations such
as Māori, through a funding mechanism from the DHBs;
2) New Zealand should consider the development of Family Nurse Practitioners,
with a general scope of primary care for all age groups, to fill the gaps
of GP service;
3) To ensure the success of the Nurse Practitioner program, the Ministry
of Health should put pressure on DHBs to provide set-aside funding for
PHOs to try alternative Nurse Practitioner models in primary care, such
as nurse-managed health centers to provide care for indigent populations,
where DHBs have a shortage of GPs and there is a lack of access to primary
care;
and 4) The Nursing Council should enter into a dialogue with universities
and consider the possibility of credentialing Schools of Nursing to award
the Nurse Practitioner degree and then administer a national test for
all graduates. This would assure fairness and equity in the process.
Since completing my fellowship, I have kept in close contact with so many
wonderful New Zealand colleagues I met during my five-week visit. For
the past two years, 20 nursing and health care leaders from New Zealand
have visited the US and attended annual best practices conferences hosted
by the organization I lead, the National Nursing Centers Consortium. Among
them were DHB funders, GPs, Nurse Practitioners, Nurse Practitioner students,
and nursing academics. The majority of them were from DHBs which serve
the Māori population in Northland.
Last year, we collectively decided that it would be fun and important
to plan our own first international conference in New Zealand. What we
know from working together is that around the world, thousands of health
care professionals have developed innovative health care models and services,
such as nurse-managed and nurse-led primary care and public health programs
that help increase access to care for millions of vulnerable populations.
In August 2007, I had the distinct honor to return to New Zealand to visit
with my New Zealand friends and colleagues, and reconnect with the wonderful
Fulbright office, which all of us Eisenhower Fellows come to know as our
home away from home. My colleagues invited me back to support them in
their continuous efforts to promote and expand the new role of Nurse Practitioners
and primary care nurse-led services, and to plan for an exciting international
health care conference to be held in Auckland in January 2008, which I
hope you will all attend!
My New Zealand colleagues and I were inspired to hold the first Global
Healthcare Solutions to Vulnerable Populations Conference by a common
belief that access to quality, affordable health care is a global problem
and a global responsibility we all share. The conference has been organized
by likeminded individuals at Auckland University of Technology, the Community
Services Development Trust of New Zealand and the National Nursing Centers
Consortium, with support from Fulbright New Zealand and Eisenhower Fellowships.
It provides an exciting opportunity for health care professionals from
around the world to share innovative health care models and services and
to discuss best practices.
The emphasis of the conference is on population-based and community-based
health care along with health promotion and preventive care through nurse-managed
and nurse-led primary care and public health programs. I look forward
in particular to the contributions of Fulbright, Eisenhower and Harkness
alumni who are leaders in this field, and encourage those of you reading
this to consider attending and presenting at the conference. Together
we share a responsibility to continue to network and share our knowledge,
to meet these exchange programs’ common aims of achieving a more
prosperous, just and peaceful world.
The Global Healthcare Solutions to Vulnerable Populations
Conference takes place at AUT University in Auckland from 16-17 January
2008, with a Nurse Practitioner Pre-Conference Workshop on the 15th. For
more information or to register, visit www.globalhealthcareconference.com
