Advantages Advanced Practice Clinicians Can Bring to Neurology: Calli L. Cook, NP, DNP
The nurse practitioner at the Woodruff School of Nursing at Emory University detailed why advanced practice clinicians should be utilized more in neurology settings.
"The benefit is you do have a generalist. If you’re taking care of a patient who has multiple sclerosis and they get a UTI, that APC is going to feel very comfortable managing that UTI because they’ve done that before. They’re trained to provide those types of services.”
A recently published viewpoint editorial in JAMA Neurology by Calli L. Cook, NP, DNP, and Heidi B. Schwarz, MD, highlighted the supply and demand issue in neurology, and the need to incorporate advanced practice clinicians (APCs) into the greater multidisciplinary care settings.1 As they pointed out, while the world continues to age, the distribution of neurologists to meet the demands of patients becomes more taxing.
Despite initiatives from the American Academy of Neurology to increase the number of APC members, the retention rate is only 65% to 70%, much lower than the retention rate for neurologists.2 The editorial emphasized first acknowledging that there is a problem integrating APCs into neurology, and that once onboarded, they can improve access to care and shared responsibility.
Cook, a nurse practitioner at the Woodruff School of Nursing at Emory University, sat down with NeurologyLive to discuss some of the advantages APCs can bring to the neurology setting, including their diverse background and skillset.
