S05 E06 Nurses - The Swiss Army Knives of teams?
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In this episode Sarah and Morgan explore the role of Nurses in Primary Care. Nurses have an incredibly wide scope of practice and fill many roles in primary care - this presents a really unique opportunity to tailor Nurse in primary care roles to the needs of patients. We will hear from three primary care Nurses who work in UPCCs and PCN clinics about what they do, how they work, and what they enjoy about working in primary care.

The key takeaways of this episode are:

• Nurses have a huge possible scope of practice. Focus in on specific care areas - chronic, preventative, urgent, specific patient populations to help narrow the scope to what is most needed in your clinic.
• Give Nurses opportunity to identify care gaps they see and to generate innovative solutions to fill them.
• Structure the work so nurses can build relationships - with patients and with the team.

Guests:

A huge thank-you to all of our wonderful guests for this season! In this episode you heard from:

• Spence Newell (RN): Spence Newell is a registered nurse who works at both the Kelowna and West Kelowna UPCCs. . He completed his BScN at McMaster University in 2017, and since that time he has worked as a nurse in primary care, public health and community health care settings.
• Janie Patrick (RN): Janie is a primary care Nurse working in two clinics as part of the North Shore PCN.
• Erin Williams (RN): Erin is a Certified STI Registered Nurse and Team Lead at the West Kelowna Urgent and Primary Care Centre. She has been working as a Team Lead since West Kelowna Urgent Care opened in October of 2020. Erin graduated with a BSN from UBC Vancouver in 2011 and spent her first ten years of nursing practice in the Acute Care setting before transitioning to Primary Care.

Resources and Links :

• To listen to the Team Up! Webinar on Nursing Scope of practice see: https://teambasedcarebc.ca/resources/resource/team-up-nursing-within-team-based-care-lessons-for-the-primary-care-sector-webinar/)
• To learn more about the scope of practice for Nurses visit the BC College of Nurses and Midwives at: https://www.bccnm.ca/RN/ScopePractice/Pages/Default.aspx)
• To learn more about RN & LPN roles in PCNs visit: https://www.pcnbc.ca/media/pcn/PCN_RN_LPN_RNC_Scope_of_Practice.pdf)
• To learn more about differences between RN & LPN Roles) check out some of the resources available on teambasedcarebc.ca)
• To learn more about team-based care and the transformation of primary care in BC check out Teambasedcarebc.ca) and TeamUP! community of practice (webinars and of course this podcast series).