title: Ambulatory care nursing: growth as a professional specialty.
abstract: Ambulatory care nursing has emerged as a distinct professional nursing specialty. Many characteristics differentiate ambulatory care nursing from other specialty practices, including the settings, the characteristics of the patient encounters and the focus upon groups, communities, and populations, as well as individual patients and their families. A conceptual framework for ambulatory care nursing was developed in 1998 and recently revised, through consensus of leaders in the specialty. The key elements of the Ambulatory Care Nursing Conceptual Framework are the patient, the environment (both internal and external), and the nurse, practicing in three major roles.
authors.affiliation: The American Academy of Ambulatory Care Nursing, Alexandria, VA, USA.
authors.forename: Margaret Fisk
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: Mastal
mesh_terms: D000553:Ambulatory Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D013041:Specialties, Nursing; D014481:United States