Nurses Vs Doctors in Health Care

National and local health policy is leading to significant changes in the skill mix of the health care workforce. Nurses are substituting for doctors while less qualified staff are substituting for registered nurses. Without a firm evidence base, these policy changes are little more than a large social experiment with poor evaluation of its risks, costs, and benefits. This paper highlights the need for further research in this area.

In this day and age, the cost of healthcare is astronomically high. Doctors expect more and more money to treat patients but yet they spend less and less time in contact with the patients. They are in and out of the room in the blink of an eye. On the other hand, nurses tend to spend more time with the patients and allow them to feel at home and ask more questions about their ailments. Nurses tend to be very caring and compassionate people that are in-tuned to their patients every need. It is the nurse who truly notices progression or regression in these patients because they spend much more one-on-one time with them. It is usually the nurse who informs the doctor of the patients' needs, wants, progression, etc.

There is definitely a pressing need for more research in this area of healthcare. With extremely well-trained registered nurses and other health care professionals stepping up to the plate in health care, patient outcomes may increase while costs of health care may decrease. I think that it would be very beneficial to have these health care professionals taking on more responsibility. The benefits of these actions may completely outweigh the risks, or just the opposite may happen. For this reason, more research should be done on this topic. If proven beneficial, these policies could be put into effect and begin to help patients achieve more positive outcomes while possibly lowering the cost of health care.