What is the Difference Between Nurses & Personal Support Workers?
There are currently 4.2 million nurses in the United States alone as of 2021. Of this number, about 350,000 are nurse practitioners. Canada in 2019 had 439,975 regulated nurses with an active license out of whom 300,669 were registered nurses and 6,159 nurse practitioners.
There are four times more nurses as there are physicians, making up, therefore, the largest portion of the healthcare workforce, not just in North America alone, but all over the world. With the important roles and services played by nurses, it is obvious that the health care industry can literally cease to function without them. However, in the healthcare industry, there are numerous categories of nursing professionals, with peculiar roles and job descriptions, but all working together to achieve a common goal. Visiting a healthcare facility, it is likely that you would have heard of or come across professionals referred to as personal support workers, registered nurses, registered practical nurses, etc. In such a setting, one might have a hard time figuring out where the duty of each professional ends and that of the other begins. This article aims to help differentiate one from the other and help you understand the unique roles they each play in helping patients get better.
PERSONAL SUPPORT WORKERS
These are healthcare workers that function under the supervision and direction of nurses. Because their skills are highly variable, individual-based, and largely unregulated, personal support workers are confined and limited to duties that do not require them to directly influence the management of patients. They cannot give intravenous injections or take blood samples. They also are not permitted to make diagnoses or treat patients. Personal support workers can be found offering their services in retirement homes, home care centers, private residences, among others. Basically, they are limited to routine functions that include helping patients with their daily routines such as personal grooming, monitoring, and helping with the administration of medications.
REGISTERED PRACTICAL NURSE
In order to become a registered practical nurse, one would have to undergo at least a 2-year diploma program. Registered practical nurses can be found in surgical rooms, post-operative rooms, casualty, and emergency centers. They have been trained to undertake more complex duties such as monitoring intravenous therapies, reading and interpreting investigative procedures such as ECG (electrocardiography). Some of their duties include assisting nursing and medical staff with basic medical tasks, keeping the environment clean and comfortable for patients, feeding, dressing, and bathing them. They can also change wound dressings and monitor wound healing. They can help patients move around with wheelchairs, Change their beddings and monitor their vitals.
REGISTERED NURSE
It takes a 4-year degree program to become a registered nurse. Registered nurses are licensed to provide a more advanced form of care. They are preferred in more acute care cases that require quick and in-depth medical interventions. They carry out direct observation of patients and record vital signs and medical findings. Registered nurses can also carry out medical examinations and run diagnostic tests for basic diseases conditions. They collect patients’ data and implement physicians’ orders. Registered nurses are always a requirement in patient treatment in primary care centers and emergencies as well.
NURSE PRACTITIONERS
These are registered nurses with advanced practice, gotten from additional training received. Nurses may choose to undergo further specialization training in intensive care, pediatrics, family medicine, gerontology, acute care medicine, or any other sub-field. In doing so, they are well equipped to assess patients and even make a medical diagnosis as well as treat some medical conditions such as diabetes and hypertension. Nurse practitioners can also provide counseling services for patients.
Understanding these differences in the medical practice helps with easy flow and interaction among health care providers.
