Discussion
the aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the ACNP role in a Canadian postoperative cardiac surgery unit using an established framework.
Although we were not able to recruit the desired sample size, we believe our study
findings illuminated useful patterns related to the ACNP role in this setting that could be explored in future research.
We found no differences in hospital length of stay, hospital re-admission rates, number of postoperative complications,adherence to cardiologist follow-up and cardiac rehabilitation between ACNP-led versus hospitalist-led care.
We also noted a disproportionately high number of men in our sample,which raises questions about system level factors that may privilege men in our cardiac surgery program, or the willingness of women versus men to participate in research studies.
Overall patient and team satisfaction did not differ significantly between groups, as has been previously reported in similar studies ( Jensen & Scherr, 2004; Sidani et al., 2006;Stables et al., 2004).
However, ACNP-led care was rated significantly higher on several patient satisfaction items (relating to teaching, answering questions, listening and pain management).
These areas of strength align with ACNP goals and education, which are grounded in nursing. ACNPs prioritize effective pain management, and it appears as if this skill translates well to the postoperative cardiac surgery setting.
The overall patient satisfaction score was slightly higher, but not statistically more significant in the ACNP group than the hospitalists’ group (103 versus 97, p = 0.1). It is possible that this represents a Type II error, and that a larger sample size would have yielded statistically significant differences in this outcome.
It is also possible that the instruments we used to measure satisfaction had inherently more random error than we anticipated.