The role of the doctorate prepared nurse practitioner in medical surge policy development and revision

Abstract

Disasters and mass casualty events pose significant challenges to healthcare facilities. It is imperative as an organization to have a medical surge policy in place should a sudden influx in patients occur. Proper policy planning is required to ensure the policy in place works sufficiently to meet the healthcare organization's needs. The purpose of this project was to define the role of the Doctorate prepared Nurse Practitioner (DNP) in the medical surge policy development and revision process. This was accomplished by leading a quality and performance improvement project workgroup after performing a review of current literature and a Root Cause Analysis of a recent mass casualty patient surge incident at the organization. The results show that the role of the DNP as it relates to medical surge policy revision are to: (a) analyze policy processes and lead development and implementation of policies, (b) influence policy making process through participation on committees and educating policymakers on nursing processes, policy, and patient outcomes, and (c) act as a change agent and stakeholder. All recommendations made to improve the medical surge policy by the DNP student were accepted and utilized in the acting organizational EOP.