Nurses: three specialised degrees launched and graduates will be able to prescribe prescriptions
Starting next academic year, three new specialist pathways in primary care, paediatric and emergency work
Key points
After the three-year degree in nursing that opens the door to the profession, three new specialised degrees are coming as of next academic year to train specialised nurses who will work in community homes or as family nurses for care at home or to work in emergency rooms or operating blocks, in intensive care units including paediatric and neonatal units. With the possibility for those graduating with one of these three new specialised pathways to be able to write prescriptions for the first time, prescribing nursing-related devices such as dressing materials or ostomy equipment starting with bags and catheters. Possibility of prescribing that until now was only the prerogative of doctors
Degrees kick off with decrees in the gazette
The decrees of the Ministry of University and Research establishing the three new Master's Degrees in Nursing Sciences on Primary Care and Family and Community Nursing, Neonatal and Paediatric Care, and Intensive and Emergency Care have just been published in the Official Gazette. The aim, as the decrees highlight, is for graduates to develop "advanced skills to assume leadership roles in health and social care management". But that's not all: it is envisaged that, at the end of the master's degree course, the future nurse will also have acquired the skills to "prescribe care treatments such as medical devices, aids, specific technologies or other, necessary to ensure continuity and safety of care in family and community nursing". And "evaluate the outcomes of the nursing care provided, identifying care standards and appropriate indicators to monitor quality, appropriateness and effectiveness".
Starting in October for a first tranche of 250 students
A turnaround that looks to a profession that keeps pace with the transformations of digital health and the new territorial medicine that is expected to be fully operational with the final goal of the NRP. A challenge, which will start from next year, also to bring back the number of young graduates and fill the gaps in the SSN: "The new degrees will start in October, that is from next academic year when we will have the first enrolled students," warns Beatrice Mazzoleni Member of the Central Committee with responsibility for European and International Affairs of the National Federation of Nursing Professions Orders. "In Italia we have 41 locations for the current master's degree and we expect that these three new specialist degrees divided into the three addresses will be launched n about 20 locations with an initial tranche of 200-250 students". These degrees aim to give "a career and professional advancement perspective to the younger generation and this," explains Mazzoleni, who is also a lecturer in the training courses, "will also have to include the need to revise the contract. In this way, we are also in line with European training and so, in addition to giving our young people the opportunity to go abroad, we are also becoming more attractive to young people from other countries'.
Professional outlets and the possibility of making recipes
But what will the professional outlets be? The degree in primary care responds "to the need to train family and community nurses to work at home, in community homes in community hospitals, but also in prevention such as in schools for children's health determinants". The one in the paediatric area will train nurses "for paediatric intensive care units and therapies or paediatric surgeries including employment in the territory for example for the care of children with rare diseases". Lastly, the one in emergency aims to train nurses who will work "in intensive care, in emergency rooms, in operating blocks and in all territorial emergencies such as 112 and 1i 18 but also in response," Mazzoleni warns, "to disasters for disaster management in healthcare, which also includes the pandemic part. And the possibility of writing prescriptions? "We are giving a tool to specialist nurses to facilitate care pathways, I give an example: it is the case of the family nurse who manages the chronic patient and has a therapeutic plan in place for years and uses various aids such as tampons, ostomies, catheters or probes. The family member will not always have to go to the doctor to have them prescribed, but it will be the nurse who assesses the patient's needs and prescribes what he or she needs".
