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I am writing in response to Gayle A. Fishman's article, "Attending Registered Nurses: Evolving Role Perceptions in Clinical Care Teams," published in the January-February 2018 issue of NursingEconomic$. When reading the article, my initial reaction was, "This is nothing new!" My purpose for writing you is to remind the Nursing Economic$ community the attending registered nurse (ARN) model is similar to the case manager or care coordinator role, which has been well-documented and used in hospitals and other care settings. My fear is that the research at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) has not considered the ample body of evidence that exists in other areas of nursing practice. My hope is that you will share this and encourage your readers to look more broadly for evidence-based solutions to the increasingly complex, digitized, and fragmented world of health care.
This article, along with a 2012 article by Jeanette Ives Erickson, describe work that has been done at MGH, regarding development of the ARN role to support delivery of integrated, patient-centered care. In her article, Dr. Fishman describes the ARN role as, "staff nurse who, with the attending physician, is responsible for ensuring the consistent and timely progression of care" and is "accountable for ensuring patient care meets clinical standards (evidence-based practice) and coordinates decision making and communication, notably during transitions of care" (p. 12).
Similarly, Powell and Ignatavicius, in...