A study of mechanisms to broaden the practice of nursing : Étude de mécanismes permettant d'élargir le champ de la pratique infirmière

The views or opinions expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CNA Board of Directors or represent the official policy of any of the funding partners. [...] Purpose and Objectives The purpose of Phase II, the current project, was first to validate the findings of Phase I related to the lack of consistency in terminology and the differences in mechanisms for transfer of authority from medicine to nursing across jurisdictions. [...] For example, consider the definition of medical directives that was to guide this study: A medical directive is defined as any mechanism the purpose of which is to support and enable the transfer of a medical act currently within the scope of medicine to nursing practice in order to provide timely and safe client care. [...] The authors found it impossible to ignore the centrality of the concept of scope of practice in interpreting the findings of this study. [...] Mechanisms to expand the scope of nursing practice provide a bridge between the relatively slow-moving process of health-care legislative and regulatory change and the rising demands of the contexts of practice.