Montse Moharra (@mmoharra), Dolors Benítez and Anna García-Altés (@annagaal)
The Department of Health provides the basis so that the collective can prescribe medication.
Nurses have increasingly more challenges on their plate. The health care is permanently immersed in innovative processes that improve health care and the services for citizens.
Since last summer, a working committee formed by members of the Department of Health, Catalonia’s Council of Nurses Colleges and Barcelona, Tarragona, Lleida and Girona Official Nurses College is developing a proposal to rule that this group may indicate, use and authorize the dispensing of drugs and medical devices.
In addition, the Department of Health, the CatSalut, the Catalan Health Institute (ICS) and other nurse entities have signed another agreement to improve aspects of the management autonomy, necessary so that its effectiveness and benefits can be exercised and collected by nursing professionals. Thus, among other aspects, it’s intends to continue improving the participation of these professionals in clinical management with more presence in the participating organizations, recognizing nurses’ professional leadership in primary care and improving the organization and management of the sector’s simplification and streamlining.
OIGS’ innovations in nursing management
Catalonia’s Observatory of Innovation in Health Management (OIGS), which incorporates advances within the Catalan health system to innovate different areas of management, has several experiences that focus on improvements affecting nurses. Indeed, two of the initiatives that received AQuAS quality certificate last September during the Third OIGS Conference were focused on innovations within this group.
One of the acknowledged experiences was ‘Integration of skilled nurses into the anaesthetist team for deep sedation in the field of digestive endoscopy’, driven by the service of anaesthesiology and section of digestive diseases and endoscopy unit of the Hospital Clinic of Barcelona. This project has established a special unit formed by anaesthesiologists and nurses specializing in sedation which has improved the service and support ensuring greater safety in this type of processes by giving more responsibility to nurses.
The ‘demand nurse’ experience of Castelldefels Health Agents (CASAP) was also awarded the quality certificate. This project has improved agility and increased encouragement in its primary focus of fostering nursing as a gateway to the system. Thus, it was able to attend to a series of consultations, such as traumas, vomiting and diarrhoea, skin lesions, genitourinary problems or emergency contraception. This initiative allows offering a quick and effective health care to citizens and the general practitioner can devote more time to other services.
Besides these two certified projects from over 180 projects registered in the Observatory, there are other initiatives that emphasize nurses as protagonists of the improvement in health management. This applies, for example, to projects for the implementation of online preoperative services or remote medicine to cure ulcers, activation of a specific high-resolution unit in rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases that would further the nurse collective’s response capacity or the standardization of care systems. You can view these projects and other innovative experiences in the OIGS’ portal.