At UW Medical Center, Advanced Practice Registered Nurses play an important role in fulfilling our mission to improve the health of the public. APRNs are registered nursing with a graduate degree in nursing and advanced training in the diagnosis and treatment of acute and chronic health conditions. Washington State recognizes the four different APRN roles – Nurse Practitioner, Clinical Nurse Specialist, Certified Nurse Midwife and Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist. All four APRN roles play a critical role in care delivery across the UWMC enterprise, from providing direct patient care and improving health outcomes for our patients and families to collaborating on teaching and research projects throughout the organization. Seen as a critical element in the professional development pathways for our nurses, advanced practice nursing leadership encourages the development of our nurse practice in a variety of ways.
APRNs serve in many leadership roles. Laurie Soine, ARNP, PhD, is the Director of Advance Practice Nursing at UW Medical Center as well as the Chief ARNP. Laurie is a valued member of the leadership team and sits on nursing and medical leadership committees that guide everything from practice development to financial management. Laurie collaborates with Leah Yoke, PA-C, who serves in the role of Chief Physician Assistant. Together Laurie and Leah work across the organization creating professional structures to support the 700+ Advanced Practice Providers (APPs) practicing across UWMC. Laurie and Leah likewise represent APPs at the Medical Leadership Committee and the Medical Staff Advisory Council. They also serve as advisors to the Advanced Practice Professionals Council.
Academic medical centers, including UWMC NW and UWMC ML have re-envisioned our clinical teams over the last many years. Higher patient acuity, increasing demands for improvement in quality and safety, and the challenges of retaining a high quality workforce are just a few of the drivers of these changes. Increasingly, ARPNs and our Physician Assistants (PA-Cs) colleagues, collectively known as APPs, have been hired to serve as the foundational care providers on almost all of our medical and surgical specialty areas, units, and clinical programs.
Throughout the pandemic, the contribution of our APRNs was pivotal to the successful response of the clinical needs of both our acute care and critical care inpatient teams as well as our outpatient clinics. APRNs accomplishments during this historically unprecedented time include: