Nurse Practitioners as Entrepreneurs; Constrained or Liberated

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February 1, 2008 | American Society of Registered Nurses®

Nurse Practitioners as Entrepreneurs: Constrained Or Liberated?

Nurse Entrepreneurs
Nurse entrepreneurs are nurses who have control over and responsibility for an increased proportion of indirect processes of care in their roles. Nurse entrepreneurs have the capability to plan, organize, finance, operate their own businesses, and they work outside of an organization (Ieong, 2005). An advanced practice nurse entrepreneur is an individual who can identify a patient's need and find a way for nursing to respond to that need in an effective way, formulate and execute a plan to meet that need (Dayhoff et.al, 2003). Nurse entrepreneur has new opportunities in the world of business and need to assemble the resources necessary to successfully exploit that opportunity- money, people and organization (Allen, 2001). A professional nurse entrepreneur thinks globally, makes decisions by consensus, knows the business, thinks big, and conducts business using a business plan (Dayhoff et.al, 2002).Nurse entrepreneurship is one of the ways for nurses to increase their visibility, reclaim their power and direct their creativity and determination (Driscoll,1999). Today, nurse entrepreneurs have established themselves in various care specialties, like acute care, gerontology and home health. (Ieong, 2005). Excellent interpersonal skills, critical thinking skills, collaboration skills, and credibility are essential for a successful nurse entrepreneur. Nurse entrepreneurship is very rewarding with financial stability, freedom, flexibility, status, enhanced patient and professional satisfaction (Roggenkamp et.al, 1998).

The Barriers

Lack of nurse’s knowledge and skills to operate in a successful business-like and profitable manner (Mackey et al,2005), higher cost of malpractice insurance, inability to obtain

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