Advanced practice registered nurses have developed an arsenal of skills and wisdom they use to deliver expert patient care, provide nurse leadership and educate other nurses. One session at Emergency Nursing 2024 will encourage advanced practice nurses to consider how to put their expertise to work beyond the confines of the emergency department.
Kelly A. Bouthillet, DNP, APRN, CCNS, ACNP-BC, FNP-C
“We have this focus where APRNs always work in the hospital,” said Kelly A. Bouthillet, DNP, APRN, CCNS, ACNP-BC, FNP-C. “I like to do things a little different.”
Bouthillet’s session, “Reimagining Advanced Practice Nursing Roles for Improved Community Health,” scheduled for Sept. 6 from 12:45 to 1:15 p.m. in Veronese 2401, will highlight how APRNs can forge their own career paths outside the ED. They can be part of a movement to treat patients where they are and address barriers to health care access and health care gaps. That kind of work has the potential of yielding more and better patient care and less emergency department overcrowding.
Her session will draw on her own varied experience, particularly her work helping a fire-based EMS system on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, during the COVID-19 pandemic. During that time, Bouthillet created her own role to help the employees develop their return-to-work procedures and a unique system for tracking patients and COVD-exposure data. She delivered care directly to the fire and rescue team members, as well as went out on calls and delivered patient care.
Bouthillet is now an independent consultant, an adjunct nursing faculty at University of South Carolina, Beaufort, and a medical provider with Volunteers in Medicine.
“When I talk to people about what I do, they ask, ‘How do you do it? Where do I start?’” Bouthillet said. She wants to raise awareness about what nurse practitioners can do within their advanced practice roles.
“I worked a fairly good while in the ED. It beats you up,” she said. “For me, emergency nursing is fun, but it is a type of nursing that’s super hard. But once you get away from it, you kind of want to go back to it. There are ways to work within that realm and impact emergency nursing without being at the stretcher.”
Since leaving the stretcherside full time, Bouthillet has taught, edited and consulted with a variety of facilities, EMS departments and organizations. She said she had never thought about going into consulting, but she now loves the freelance career she has built.
“There are things we can do that influence emergency care and the care people receive. That’s who we are and what we do,” Bouthillet said. “At the end of the day, we as advance practice providers have the power to create. We have a lot of skills. We don’t have to fit within a mold.”