Category: N

A registered nurse (RN) responsible for the overall administration and management of nursing services in a hospital. It is the highest nursing position in the hospital. The nursing service administrator may have the title ‘Vice-president for nursing” or some similar title. The former title was “nursing director.”  

An entity whose profits (excess of income over expenses) are used for its own purposes rather than returned to its members (shareholders, investors, owners) as dividends. To qualify for tax exemption, no portion of the profits of the entity may “inure” to the benefit of an individual.  

Not owned or operated by the federal government.  

A process developed by Delbecq, Van de Ven, and Gustafson for “increasing the creative productivity of group action, facilitating group decisions…and saving human effort and energy…” A nominal group is a group “in name only,” a type of group in which individuals are together but do not talk or interact until late in the NGT…

A group “in name only.” A type of group described by Delbecq, Van de Ven, and Gustafson in which individuals are together in the process known as the Nominal Group Technique (NGT).  

Originating or existing in the intellect or the spiritual world. There are an increasing number of health care organizations which are emphasizing the integration of science and spirituality in order to enhance the “healing force,” joining scientific medicine with a spiritual or noetic dimension, to create whole person and whole community health care.  

An informal relationship among individuals for exchange of information, counsel, and planning; a support group. The branch of medicine which deals with the nervous system, its functions and its diseases and disorders. One of the medical specialties for which residency programs have been approved by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME).  

A network is an entity that provides, or provides for, integrated health services to a defined population of individuals. A network offers comprehensive or specialty services and has a centralized structure that coordinates and integrates services provided by components and practitioners participating in the network. The term broadly covers a wide variety of arrangements, including…

A facility, located where it will be easy for patients to go, which provides various services short of inpatient care.  

A fee schedule for paying physicians or other health care providers, determined through collective bargaining.