Ambulatory nurses provide preventive care to outpatients in various settings, including patients’ homes. They monitor and treat patients, provide patient education, and coordinate care with other healthcare staff. They also evaluate nursing services and supervise non-licensed nurses.
An ambulatory nurse provides care to healthy, outpatients who seek services in outpatient settings such as physicians’ offices, health clinics, and outpatient surgery centers. These nurses may even provide services in a patient’s home. Outpatient nurse patients are generally quite mobile and moderately self-sufficient, although levels of illness can range from mild to acute. The role of the ambulatory nurse is to monitor and treat these patients using preventive care strategies so that serious health problems do not develop and result in hospitalization, debilitation or complete dependence. Nurses in ambulatory care do this by creating close and ongoing relationships with patients and caregivers in order to monitor continuity of care and quality of care.
Preventive treatment and the service provided by an outpatient nurse may include examinations, pain management, prescription advice, and general consultation. Ambulatory care nurses, who need to be registered nurses, are also expected to provide patient education, tips for rehabilitation, and guidance on proper health habits. Coordinated care provided by all of the patient’s physicians may also be a duty of an ambulatory nurse.
This guidance can be provided in person, but is usually overwhelmingly through regular telephone contact; for example, an ambulatory nurse often handles following up on a patient’s surgery and monitoring the patient’s response to new medications or equipment over the telephone. Problem solving and the ability to think critically are two essential skills for ambulatory care nurses, as follow-up appointments may reveal recovery or adjustment issues that the nurse will be responsible for addressing through emergency intervention.
In contrast to hospital nurses, ambulatory care nurses see large numbers of patients on a recurring and long-term basis over several years or life stages. Individual interactions with patients, however, are typically brief, lasting from less than an hour to a few days at a time; hospitalized nurses, however, can spend weeks with a patient and never see them again. Ambulatory care nurses often act as liaisons between patients and physicians or other healthcare staff. They are responsible for conveying the patient’s needs and concerns to the full medical team.
In addition to patient care and collecting patient data, an ambulatory care nurse’s duties may involve evaluating nursing services for compliance with local and national laws and regulations. Many also plan professional development initiatives for their medical facilities. Supervising non-licensed or nursing nurses and delegating tasks to these co-workers are also responsibilities of an ambulatory nurse. In addition to being licensed as a registered nurse, ambulatory nurses must also possess cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) certification.
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