The care of older adults is the overriding issue at this year's GAPNA conference of course, but members are also turning their attention to national practice issues that affect all NP specialties. Yesterday, Evelyn Duffy, NP, director of the adult and gerontologic NP program at Case Western Reserve University, presented an informational session ...

If you're an NP who owns your own practice, be sure to enter the 2009 ADVANCE for Nurse Practitioners NP Entrepreneur of the Year competition. Do it for Leah Hansen, perhaps the only nurse practitioner with her own practice in Australia. Because her practice isn't in the United States, Hansen isn't eligible for the competition. But you are. Now, ...

Do you have your disaster plan ready?? The avian flu spurred organizations to evaluate their disaster plans and to revise or add provisions in response to a national biohazard or infectious disease disaster. Our county health department has been holding meetings for care providers to assist them in developing individual disaster plans as well as ...

I just returned from NAPNAP's annual conference, where pediatric nurse practitioners were abuzz with possibilities for health care reform. Watch our blogs and Web site for more detail in coming weeks, but this morning I urge you to visit NAPNAP's Web site (www.napnap.org) and its legislative action center. You do not need to be a member of NAPNAP ...

I heard a report on American Public Radio's Marketplace program this morning about the possible future of the ''concierge'' model of medical practice. A concierge practice is a sort of membership health care plan: Basically, patients pay an annual flat fee for comprehensive, on-demand access to their health care provider. The interesting note in ...

Owning your own business comes with many challenges. Including, managing the practice as well as seeing  patients. Although I love seeing patients, I also enjoy spending time managing my own practice. This includes hiring, advertising, determining hours of operations, etc... After practicing for several years now, I have come to really ...

I spent a lot time last week going over submissions to the ADVANCE for Nurse Practitioners Entrepreneur of the Year contest. All the judges' scores are in, and the editorial staff is meeting this afternoon to determine a winner. I'm afraid that meeting will take some time — we had so many exceptional submissions this year. Your private practice ...

Among the many interesting and motivating tidbits ACNP president Susan Apold shared at the organization's clinical conference was some background on a strategy that organized medicine seems to have adopted toward NPs. Here's a Wikpedia description of the strategy, which is called FUD: Fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) is a tactic of rhetoric ...