Is There a Health Promotion and Protection Foundation to the Practice of Acute Care Nurse Practitioners?

Currently, debate continues regarding defining the role of nurse practitioners in the acute care setting. Health maintenance, health promotion, disease prevention, and health restoration are central goals of nurse practitioner care. Some question the degree (if any) to which acute care nurse practitioners regard health promotion as a basis for their practice. In this article, the concept of health promotion and protection is explored, with application to patients in the acute care setting; and the extent to which acute care nurse practitioners support such practices is examined