TSNRP Military Family Speaker Series Care of the Military Family Part III

Optimizing the Pediatric Nurse Practitioner’s role during Military Operations
 

​Speaker: Maj Kelley M. Henson, USAF, NC, RN, PNP

Description: This presentation provides reasoning on how to optimize Pediatric Nurse Practitioners (PNP) capabilities in both wartime and peacetime scenarios in support of Military Families.

Background: In the Military Health System (MHS) Pediatric Nurse practitioners play a key role in evaluating and treating patients up to 23 years of age; however, their roles can vary widely across the services in how they are trained, utilized, and tasked for combat/deployment missions. Important is the degree to which PNP skills translate to an adult population in a combat/wartime scenario. Currently, PNP slots are not part of the combat mission, and risk being reduced and/or eliminated by the services.   There could be unintended consequences to these actions.

In this presentation we outline the PNP scope of practice, highlight the PNP’s potential contribution in a wartime setting, discuss the implications of maintaining the status quo, and emphasize the urgency to find an alternative to elimination of PNP slots.

Methods: Relevant literature was reviewed to explore these issues. This study relied on a range of sources:  Peer-reviewed academic articles, federal government publications, publicly available DoD documents and press releases, media articles and academic texts collected through searches of the Defense Technical Information Center database, the Web of Science index and the Nexis Uni database. 

Results: Adult military providers report being unprepared to care for infants and children while deployed and describe feeling surprised by the volume and acuity level of pediatric patients in that setting. Care in a deployed setting is frequently delivered by providers working outside of their specialty area. The expectation is that pediatric providers work as generalists in combat support hospitals (CSH). Important is the degree to which the PNP’s pediatric expertise as well as their foundational nursing skills across the lifespan translate to an adult population in a combat/wartime scenario.  The 2022 National Defense Strategy’s call for an agile Joint Force, and the AF’s Lead Wing with a hub-and-spoke model provides options for PNPs to contribute to expeditionary operations.

Virtual Platform: GoToWebinar

Target Audience: Members of the Military Community, Providers for Military Families, Nurse Researchers
Fee: $0
CME/CE: 1 hrs

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This webinar is sponsored by: