Background: This posterboard presents the ongoing work of Wisconsin Department of Health Services’ Reproductive Health Family Planning (RHFP) unit’s clinical nurse protocols for our statewide subrecipients. Due to the lack of mid-level providers, especially in our rural areas, many of our RHFP clinics are nurse run clinics. To allow our nurses to work at the top of their scope of practice, delegated orders are required. With delegated orders in place, nurses are able to provide a broad range of services that many of our clients would not have access to. But due to the many hats that local health departments wear, many times there is not enough time nor resources for medical directors to create nurse protocols for each specialty. One of the biggest needs identified, especially in our rural areas, was the growing rates of sexually transmitted infections and the need for STI testing and treatment.
Methods: The state team took this lift off of the local level and created a set of the most needed nurse protocols for the RHFP clinics. These protocols are based upon the most recent evidence-based practice, CDC recommendations, and nationally recognized guidelines. These protocols are then reviewed annually at the state level for any new protocol needs and updates. These protocols were distributed via email and then presented to subrecipients over multiple different platforms.
Results: These protocols have aided in expanding the care the nurses are able to provide clients at the local level and in return allow for increased access to our clients for RHFP services across the state of Wisconsin.
Conclusion: This posterboard presentation illustrates how a statewide team can help support their local health department clinics expand their scope of practice so that they can provide many services that may not otherwise be available in their service area.
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