THE ROLE OF NURSE PRACTITIONERS IN OPTIMIZING SURGICAL DIABETES CARE

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effectiveness of nurse practitioners for the improvement of surgical diabetes care and the differences between them and traditional models of care. Our study was a comparative study in which we included 150 patients; 75 were under care from nurse practitioners and 75 under conventional care. Some of the parameters assessed comprise age, duration of diabetes, preoperative HbA1c levels, and patient satisfaction. It was found that patients cared for by nurse practitioners had slightly better outcomes in these regards, although the variability was also cut down which points towards better standardization of care. This study found that the patient satisfaction scores were significantly higher among the patients that received care from the nurse practitioners as compared to the rest of the groups. The gender distribution, diabetes type, and comorbidities were also investigated the study and it was observed that there were no demographic disparities. Consequently, our results raise the possibility of developing surgical diabetes care teams with the inclusion of nurse practitioners. The study offers significant information on how NPs may improve patients’ management, satisfaction, and outcomes. The conclusions for the healthcare policy and practice point to the fact that the nurse practitioners are an essential part of enhancing the surgical diabetes care quality and should be taken into consideration in the strategic planning of the teams. More studies should be conducted in the future to establish the long-term effects of the involvement of nurse practitioners on surgical performances and patients’ well-being.