[Evaluation of Nurse Demand Management in Primary Care]. / Evaluación de la gestión enfermera de la demanda en atención primaria.

OBJECTIVE: to evaluate the health outcomes of nurse demand management on unscheduled patients in a Primary Care Centre, following a clinical guide designed by the whole primary care team. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. SETTING: A primary care team from Castelldefels. Barcelona, Spain. PARTICIPANTS: A random sample of 558 patients requesting a consultation for the same day in a Primary Care setting, attended between May 1st, 2011 and January 31st, 2012. INTERVENTION: The guide includes 23 health problems that can be dealt by a nurse autonomously, 18 of them possibly requiring an emergency intervention, and shared decision with the physician. Each health problem is divided into three sections: a) a brief definition of the problem; b) an intervention algorithm; and c) nursing diagnoses of North American Nursing Diagnosis Association for each health problem and a description of the possible nursing interventions. RESULTS: We studied 558 patients with a mean age of 42.5 years old (SD 17.7). The most commonly consulted problems were upper respiratory tract symptoms (19.4%), followed by nausea/vomiting (16.5%), and burns/wounds (12.5%). 73.3% of the problems were resolved autonomously by a nurse. 65,8% of the patients attended received health advice. DISCUSSION: Nurse demand management has shown to be highly effective at handling the conditions attended, while it provides a high percentage of health advice and education during consultations.

Implementation of Nurse Prescriptions throughout the Public Health System in Catalonia (2021-2022).

BACKGROUND: Nurses in Catalonia have always prescribed health advice, health products, and medication in line with the professional competency of the discipline. Legislation about nurse prescriptions and the implementation of nurse prescribing varies widely among different countries. This article reports data regarding nurse prescribing in Catalonia in 2021 and 2022. METHODS: This retrospective longitudinal study analyzed data from all care-providing units in Catalonia's integrated public health system. RESULTS: The number of nurse prescriptions increased from 139,435 in 2021 to 573,822 in 2022, and the number of nurses issuing prescriptions increased from 3604 in 2021 to 5563 in 2022. The proportion of prescriptions for different products was similar in the two years analyzed. Prescriptions for medication increased by 7.5% in 2022. CONCLUSIONS: Nurse prescribing is a recent advance in Catalonia. Despite some difficulties in rollout, the data indicate that this practice is becoming consolidated, as in other European countries.