Nurse practitioners are essential members of the multidisciplinary team managing heart transplant candidates and recipients, a patient population with highly specialized, complex care needs. Nurse practitioners contribute to successful patient outcomes by delivering expert care, facilitating smooth transitions, and maintaining continuity of care throughout the patient’s journey. This continuum of care progresses from pretransplant evaluation and optimization, to the vulnerable perioperative and recovery period, and throughout the patient’s transition back into the community, which entails lifelong prevention, surveillance, and management of long-term complications. The deep familiarity of nurse practitioners with program protocols, stewardship of collaboration, and consistent presence positions them as trusted resources for nurses, trainees, allied health professionals, and consulting specialists involved in the heart transplant recipient’s care. Overall, nurse practitioners help to streamline care, mitigate risk, bring forth best outcomes, and optimize patient well-being in the ever-evolving heart transplant population.
Jamero et al. (Tue,) studied this question.