Nurse practitioner development: From the perspective of the author

The role of nurse practitioner (NP) has had 20 years of development in Taiwan, with most NPs today being trained in hospitals. The Department of Health, together with leaders from medical and nursing disciplines, has in recent years implemented laws to help ensure that NP system development remains on track. Numerous research studies conducted overseas verify the effectiveness of NP in clinical care and demonstrate that expectations of NP differ from country to country. As a pioneer in advanced NP training in Taiwan's higher education system, I believe the efficacy of NP training programs as currently organized in Taiwan to be equivocal. This is especially so in NP's core competency. This paper introduces the development of NP in Taiwan to provide better insight into the role and contribution of the NP training system to medical care in Taiwan.