Paramedic & Nursing Dual Roles: Function in Multidisciplinary Teams

This essay discusses the emerging role of paramedics holding dual qualifications in nursing, particularly in the context of the Australian healthcare system. With the introduction of paramedic registration under AHPRA, the essay explores the benefits and challenges of dual registration, examining how these professionals function within multidisciplinary healthcare teams. It highlights the potential for improved healthcare delivery, especially in remote and rural areas, by leveraging the combined skills of paramedics and nurses. The essay also considers the impact on ambulance services, community health education, and specialized roles within paramedicine, while addressing concerns about potential limitations and quality of care. The role of Health Workforce Australia (HWA) in shaping the future of dual registration is also mentioned. Desklib offers students access to similar solved assignments and past papers.

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PARAMEDICINE
QUESTION -2
With the introduction of paramedic registration, there will now be a number of
paramedics that hold dual qualifications (and registration) in nursing and
paramedicine. How do you envisage this role in the future and how will it function
within the multi-disciplinary health care team?
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Introduction
The duty of healthcare professional lies in ‘protection of their title’ rather than
only performing within their ‘scope of practice’. A paramedic is considered
professional paramedic when they work in all circumstances to protect their title even
if they are performing any other healthcare professional duty. The concept of dual
registration is a new phenomenon in healthcare profession where a healthcare
professional is designated with two titles or they can get qualifications of two
healthcare profession at one time. This phenomenon of dual registration allows a
nurse to hold two registrations as a paramedic as well as a nurse to enhance their
qualification, skills and performance (Curtis & Ramsden, 2015). According to
McLean (2017) studies, generally, a nurse has to perform or is expected to perform
their professional duty as a paramedic in the situation of emergency, as they are first-
line professional encountered by the patient. Everyone involved in emergency
situation expects nurses to perform their duty of care becoming a paramedic
irrespective of their title. Therefore, the phenomenon of dual registration emphasises
an optimistic approach allowing a nurse to enhance their approaches, skills and power
to initiate better performance while handling emergency situations as a paramedic.
Paramedicine became an organised profession on December 1, 2018 in
Australia, where paramedics have to register themselves with Paramedicine Board of
Australia. The healthcare nurses who want to register as paramedics and willing to
practice as a professional paramedic require to get a dual registration (dual
qualification) as a nurse as well as a paramedic as per Paramedicine Board of
Australia and Nursing Board of Australia (NMBA). This system of dual registrations
and qualification is an innovative phenomenon in the profession of paramedics
promising an optimistic workable approach to help the public in terms of healthcare
(Willis & Dalrymple, 2015).
The benefits of dual registration nursing/paramedics role in the future
The dual registration paramedics/nurses is an attractive career option as per
viewpoints of practicing healthcare nursing professionals. The role promises a
workable approach to benefit the public, reduce workload and systematic clinical
process in healthcare services (Blaber & Harris, 2014). McLean (2017) mentioned
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perspectives of nurses working in Australia regarding the concept of dual registration
(paramedic/nurse) and the benefit of this role in the future. These perspectives were
collected through interview of nurses holding a dual degree in nursing and
paramedicine. According to these perspectives, nurses are the first respondent to any
emergency situation, therefore, having a dual degree actually work for them to gain
knowledge of both paramedical and nursing skills. Further, it is an attractive career
option for nurses to either work as a nurse or paramedics as per their choice. Nursing
staff stated that dual nursing-paramedicine program shall help to perform
collaborative work, increase partnership, reduce or distribute workload effectively and
attain performance satisfaction.
Reynolds & O’Donnell (2016) studied about an exploration of dual degree
(nursing/paramedic) graduate transition program in the Grampians Region of
Australia. This program allowed collaboration of work between five different
organisations that are Ambulance Victoria, Ballarat Health Services, Department of
Health and Human Services, Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF)
and Ambulance Employees Australia Victoria (AEAV). This program allowed all
these organisations to perform in different manner all together, involving open
communication, better organisation, full-time employment, workplace stability,
employee motivation and retention. Further, Williams & Webb (2015) also studied
the benefits of employing dual degree (nursing/paramedics) graduates in South West
Hospital and Health Services (SWHHS). The major benefit involved an increase in
workforce flexibility, improved knowledge and skill base in Hospital and Health
Services. This indicates that dual registration holds a promising benefit to the
profession of healthcare.
According to Plummer, Tozer-Jones & Williams (2017) study, the nursing
shortage is a major issue of concern in Australia. As per statistics, in 2008, only 7012
student nurses completed their graduate nursing degree leading to unbalanced supply
and demand of nurses in the country. This shortage was increasing year after year.
The implementation of different Dual Degree (DD) courses was one of the steps
forward for balancing the supply and demand issue of nurses in the country. This DD
program in nursing and paramedics worked to attract a variety of students towards the
nursing profession who got the option of multi career opportunity. The DD qualified
students were consumed quickly after graduation, higher tertiary entrance scores and
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more female nurses were discovered as some of the most outstanding benefits of this
program. Further, it is stated that the implementation of DD courses in nursing and
paramedics shall always help to balance the supply and demand ratio benefiting the
employee, the employer and the user.
Barnfield, Cross & McCauley (2018) indicated that dual qualification in
nursing/paramedics field shall ensure public safety, protection of title, maintaining
National standards, greater flexibility and portability as well as patient satisfaction in
near future. The dual qualified professional having multiple skills ensure public safety
and patient satisfaction. They are made capable to follow all standards of care
protecting their title and maintaining National standards. Further, employers hold
greater flexibility and portability in hiring registered paramedics/nurses as per their
requirements. This makes dual registration an all-round benefit in the near future of
healthcare in Australia.
Plummer, Tozer-Jones & Williams (2017) studied the difference between the
role of registered nurse and paramedics in the Australian healthcare system. As per
this study, paramedics handle an emergency situation by managing patient’s way to
healthcare services like hospitals or clinics whereas nurses take responsibility from
this point to deliver care services and other treatment requirements for a similar
patient. The job responsibilities of paramedic involve ambulance driving, transporting
the patient, observing and diagnosis of vital signs, managing supplies and
equipment’s, attending emergency calls and patient to the hospital. Further,
responsibilities of nurse involve developing care plans, providing care, performing
tests (diagnosis and observatory tests), operating instruments and assisting physician.
The dual registration as a paramedic/nurse allows a professional to get training in
performing all of these responsibilities together. Basically, performing multi-tasking
at one platform makes dual registration an innovation in healthcare.
However, Reynolds & O’Donnell (2016) indicated that dual registration, as a
paramedic/nurse shall negatively affect the quality of healthcare services by
restricting the abilities, inducing performance pressure, degradation of quality due to
multitasking and limited approaches. As per this study conclusion, dual registration
should be considered as an option profession in case of the emergency requirement
rather than first line profession in healthcare. In contrast to this, Considine, Walker &
Berry (2015) stated that paramedic/nurses dual registration profession hold its root
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even in the ancient healthcare system in the form of emergency nurses profession.
There were nurses in World War II that worked all together to handle the emergency
situation in war times as paramedics successfully. Therefore, considering dual
registration as a degraded profession or harm to the quality of care is senseless.
Rather, dual professionalism shall surely benefit both the professions (paramedics and
nurses) as well as the healthcare system in many effective manners in the future.
The functionality of dual qualification paramedics within the multidisciplinary
health care team
Paramedics/nurses holding dual qualification are also considered to be
beneficial for the Paramedical personnel team. The paramedical personnel team
consist of professionals that work under the guidance of a physician to provide patient
services. There are the therapist, paramedics, nurses, ancillary personnel, technicians
and other trained persons in this paramedical team providing emergency assistance
services (Clair, Reid, Shaw & Ramsbotham, 2014). Paramedics are also an important
part of this team working to perform routine diagnosis, taking samples, therapeutic
procedures, managing wounds and administering injections. However, nurse
practitioners are considered highly trained professionals in this team that provide
direct assistance to the physician taking responsibility for patient care and treatment.
Now, introduction to dual registration professional where one individual can perform
as a paramedic as well as a nurse in this paramedical personnel team holds a
promising approach to deliver better patient care (Thomas, Pollard & Sellman, 2014).
Williams & Webb (2015) studied the benefits of having dual qualified
paramedics/nurses in providing ambulance service delivery. These ambulance service
delivery models work to take treatment to the patient as well as taking the patient to
treatment. The dual qualified nurses/paramedics are considered a gem to ambulance
service delivery team because they persist skills to handle emergency situations as
well as provide appropriate treatment. Dual qualified Paramedics/nurses are an
important part of ambulance service where they are considered as two-in-one service
providers as a back up as well as support to the suffering patient.
According to Williams, Fielder, Strong, Acker & Thompson (2015) studies,
paramedics/nurses are considered as new era community educators that work together
with community education team to provide a better range of knowledge, skill and
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development to the learners. As dual qualification is an innovative category of
education in the healthcare system, the paramedics/nurses holding dual degree learn
exceptional and updated skills, technologies etc. This makes them perfectly capable to
work with the community team in providing a narrative category of education to the
ancient community centres.
Further, nurses/paramedics are considered as future of multi-skilled
individuals who can analyse as well as handle the physical, mental or psychological
disturbance in the patient with a prompt and effective response to ambulance calls,
pre-hospitalization and transport services at the community centre (Johnson, Boyd,
Grantham & Eastwood, 2014). Further, Reynolds & O’Donnell (2016) stated that
paramedics along with nursing qualification could become special operation team
(SOT), team leaders and Intensive-care paramedics (ICPs) in a community rescue
team to help with better community health services.
Australia persists a world-class healthcare standard working in most
appropriate manner to deliver the best healthcare services. However, the country faces
a major layback in delivering these healthcare services to its remote and rural regions.
The reasons behind this layback are healthcare cost, increased chronic illnesses
requiring greater resources, shortage of clinicians (global and national level) and
resistance by professional to work in rural areas. This issue makes the healthcare
status of indigenous Australians lower than the general population of the country. In
response to this issue, the Australian government has taken and is taking appropriate
measures to improve healthcare service deliveries in its remote regions. The
bolstering of healthcare service providers in these regions has helped to deliver a
better health care delivery model in remote and rural regions (Perona, Rahman &
O'Meara, 2019).
According to Considine, Walker & Berry (2015) studies, the paramedics
expanded healthcare program in Canada, the UK and the USA has helped to meet the
local community healthcare needs. This program involves tailored services provided
by multi-skilled healthcare team to deliver care services. In Australia, such programs
are recently studied and developed to implement multi-skilled professionals in the
remote and rural region. Now, the dual-qualified paramedics/nurses are highly
demanded in this program because they are multi-skilled professional providing
proper justice to the requirements of the program. Paramedics/nurses perform a dual
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duty to handle the emergency as well as provide treatment. Paramedics are trained to
migrate from one region to another that can benefit rural regions both practically and
economically and their qualification of being nurses can help to take treatment to the
patient in these rural regions where people cannot reach treatment of urban regions. In
this manner, paramedics/nurses dual qualification shall help to overcome the issue of
poor healthcare services in rural and remote regions of Australia (Blaber & Harris,
2014). The Health Workforce Australia (HWA) is still working to develop the future
of dual registration (paramedics/nurses) profession and its impact on the healthcare
profession. The HWA examines the role of paramedics in healthcare by developing
better knowledge through research. HWA works to provide paramedics with potential
access to national eHealth records, Medicare provider numbers as well as granting
scholarships for this profession. This initiative from HWA indicates that dual
registration of paramedics definitely holds a promising positive impact on the
healthcare system in Australia (Stow, Morphet, Griffiths, Huggins & Morgan, 2017).
Conclusion
The concept of dual registration as a nurse and paramedic is a new
phenomenon that initiates a promising approach of better healthcare services in the
future. The dual registration format allows a nurse to hold a degree of a paramedic to
get both the titles together expanding their area of performance. Basically, this format
of dual registration works for the benefit of the patients as well as healthcare
professionals making it an optimistic workable approach for a better future.
As per the professional’s viewpoint, dual registration is a good career option,
gain knowledge, reduction to workload, increase partnership and performance
satisfaction. Further, management can also attain certain benefits from employing
professional having dual registration. As per certain research studies, management can
increase workforce flexibility, improve skill base, maintain employee retention,
enhance and manage manpower properly. It is been pre-assumed, as per statistical
studies that dual registration in nursing and paramedics shall always work to maintain
supply and demand ratio of healthcare professionals in the future. Further,
professional having dual registration shall also ensure public safety, better service,
maintenance of healthcare standards, greater flexibility, better performance and better
approaches for the patients in future.
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The paramedics having dual qualifications can also be a strong benefit to
paramedic personnel team and ambulance service in rural and remote areas because of
their multi-skilled qualification. Paramedic/nurse are considered good community
educators, ethically reliable, multi-skilled dealing with the emergency as well as
treatment process. This structures dual registration professional role as an essential
and promising one in the future of healthcare for the public, professionals as well as a
healthcare team.
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References
Books
Blaber, A., & Harris, G. (2014). Clinical leadership for paramedics. United Kingdom:
McGraw-Hill Education.
Clair, W. S., Reid, D., Shaw, S., & Ramsbotham, J. (2014). Evidence-based health
practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Curtis, K., & Ramsden, C. (2015). Emergency and trauma care for nurses and
paramedics. United Kingdom: Elsevier Health Sciences.
Johnson, M., Boyd, L., Grantham, H. J., & Eastwood, K. (2014). Paramedic
principles and practice ANZ. Australia: Harcourt Publishers Group Pty. Limited.
Thomas, J., Pollard, K., & Sellman, D. (Eds.). (2014). Interprofessional working in
health and social care: Professional perspectives. London : Macmillan
International Higher Education.
Willis, S., & Dalrymple, R. (2015). Fundamentals of paramedic practice: A systems
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Journals
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Plummer, V., Tozer-Jones, J., & Williams, B. (2017). The Bachelor of
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