AP1 Module 3 Paper
In recent years, nurses have given more attention to the required nurse competencies and social change. With the nurse roles as pillars in nursing, direct practice is applied to the measurable patient outcome to ensure better patient outcomes. The dynamic nature of the nurse roles has been driving more nurses to remain up to date with the recent competencies (Côté et al., 2019). Constant training of the nurses has become one of the core principles to sharpen the skills of these nurses and allow them to adhere to the set clinical guidelines. In this view, the purpose of this write-up is to address the role of the Nurse Practitioner.
Advanced Nurse Practitioner Role
Advanced NP role greatly affects nursing care as they affect policies and strategies accepted as better practice in nursing. This advanced role allows nurses to easily apply the information gained from science and knowledge into practice. They ensure that nurses use ethics, biophysical, and organizational sciences to improve patient safety (Côté et al., 2019). All the application of knowledge gained in the learning process should always aim to improve the patient’s health conditions. Also, they can use nursing theories and scientific applications to identify the nature of health care, strategies, and actions effective in evaluating and enhancing care delivery to improve health care delivery. Therefore, advanced NPs have skills to support future success in healthcare settings.
Advanced NPs are also significant in developing effective leadership in nursing. These nurses are trained in leadership skills that can improve quality after undertaking many nursing projects in various settings. A nurse would be fit to develop effective strategies that aim at improving methods of health care delivery. These strategies must meet patients’ current and future needs (Côté et al., 2019). Such roles originate from critically examining scientific information and present healthcare policies. They also have to ensure that the current quality improvement methods used within the healthcare system effectively meet safety, affordability, cost-effectiveness, and cultural sensitivity. The completion of the program further implies that a new professional is at the helm of health care management and would lead to a change that health care has required for many years.
Advanced NPs have the ability of the nurses to apply information technology to allow adequate evaluation and development of a program that will have a positive outcome on patients. The quality-of-service delivery remains the main objective that these nurses aim to achieve by including their expertise in information technology (Cooper et al., 2019). An increase in the program’s effectiveness affects the evaluation of the care programs and the outcome, which would result in perfection and accuracy. Essentially, these nurses are highly professional in ensuring that information systems improve care quality and affect general decision-making.
Why Are You Becoming a Nurse Practitioner?
Completing the practicum experience in the emergency department will allow me to apply these essential nursing skills in the nursing practice. I will also be able to understand critical roles in the emergency department and support my team in meeting the desired patient outcome. Leading in technological application in the healthcare system and proposing changes would be some of the new nurse roles I will have as a nurse practitioner (Cooper et al., 2019). Besides, I will also integrate and synthesize the essentials of advanced nursing practice across the curriculum. For example, nurses will know how leadership skills take effect in healthcare management and the issues they face in nurse leadership.
The Nursing Practice (NP) program is ideal and aligns with my goals. This program will give me the tools to affect the healthcare setting positively. The current US healthcare system cites many gaps that need to be optimized (Kleinpell et al., 2019). These are the gaps that I would like to fill and focus on being part of the change process in this system. My focus as an NP nurse will be to promote health and disease prevention, which would be important in reducing the current cost of healthcare in the US.
My primary goal is to maximize all training and knowledge obtained during the program to impact my work setting. The diverse population in the US presents various age groups, income levels, and ethnicities that I will utilize in leading health promotion and change (Thompson, 2019). I will aim to help the uninsured and underprivileged patients in the area who may not see the benefit of the US healthcare system. Nurses’ support of the current healthcare policies in the US greatly changes the future of nursing in the US.
Article Summary
Torrens, C., Campbell, P., Hoskins, G., Strachan, H., Wells, M., Cunningham, M., … & Maxwell, M. (2020). Barriers and facilitators to the implementation of the advanced nurse practitioner role in primary care settings: a scoping review. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 104, 103443. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2019.103443
Summary
The objective of this article was to identify, appraise, and synthesize the barriers and facilitators that affect the implementation of advanced practitioner roles in a primary care setting. The increasing workload in primary care has been increasing the roles of NPs in meeting the desired patient outcome. The study points to the new role of NPs in reducing staff shortages and improving the quality of healthcare services.
The study authored by Torrens et al. (2020) is categorical on the increased NP role in taking up activities that doctors have traditionally taken up. This has significantly reduced the shortage of doctors and minimized the cost of hiring more doctors in the healthcare system. The current implementation of any new role in healthcare has been challenging because of the low staff. Including NPs in these roles has reduced the implementation barriers and allowed many NPs to take up the roles of doctors.
This study raises an understanding of the new roles of NPs in the 21st century. The uptake of these roles allows NP nurses to offer the services that had always been known to be for doctors. This article acts as a wake-up call to the healthcare community to adopt the change of equipping NPs with the skills doctors should take up. This change is important in increasing the number of physicians and solving issues of staff shortage that have been a problem for many years. This article was chosen because of its focus on the technological roles of NPs in meeting the healthcare outcome.
Institute of Medicine (IOM) Comments on the Need of Nurse Practitioners
IOM has been advocating for the increase of NPs in the healthcare setting as they aid in filling the void left by the physician shortage. The IOM projects a shortage of 37,000 to 124,000 by 2034. This significant shortage would hit the healthcare department differently, thus calling for more NPs to help fill the projected gap. Few nurses who cannot offer patients the required services reduce patient satisfaction (Khezri &Abdekhoda, 2019). There is an urgent need for all healthcare providers to have the correct patient-nurse ratio as they would improve the quality of healthcare services to patients. These NPs can work alongside physicians and train independently to deliver desired care.
Increasing the number of NPs increases the transformation of many nurses to be nurse informatics. By incorporating IT in nursing education, patient care, nursing research, and other elements of nursing practice, nurse informaticists have boosted healthcare within organizations that have embraced nursing informatics. These nursing professionals also contribute to enhancing the efficiency of healthcare organizations by ensuring that patient data is kept in an electronic system for accurate and convenient access at the time of need (Khezri &Abdekhoda, 2019). By doing so, the healthcare team may provide patients with high-quality care resulting from high accuracy in healthcare information, eliminating mistakes in the patient care process, including prescription and administration of medications. Nurse informaticists also support evidence-based nursing by assisting researchers in obtaining the information and knowledge needed to streamline nursing research processes.
Effects I will have as Advanced NP
As an advanced NP, I will focus on changing nurse leadership to achieve the desired outcome. The interdisciplinary teams can collaborate to improve quality care outcomes through technology, good communication, and focus on nurse training.Teamwork and mutual support among leaders is a factor that has been fostering effective management in nursing. The team development at the organization will be effective in enhancing excellence since it is associated with patient safety.
Conclusion
NPs are essential in healthcare as they support a wide range of activities in a healthcare setting. While their role may vary from state to state, they have a long-lasting impact on patients. The need to implement modern technology in healthcare, solve the issue of physician shortage, and care for the aging population needs more NPs. These are some of the reasons that have increased their significance in a healthcare setting.
References
Cooper, M. A., McDowell, J., Raeside, L., & ANP–CNS Group. (2019). The similarities and differences between advanced nurse practitioners and clinical nurse specialists. British Journal of Nursing, 28(20), 1308-1314. https://doi.org/10.12968/bjon.2019.28.20.1308
Côté, N., Freeman, A., Jean, E., & Denis, J. L. (2019). New understanding of primary health care nurse practitioner role optimisation: the dynamic relationship between the context and work meaning. BMC Health Services Research, 19(1), 1-10.https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-019-4731-8
Torrens, C., Campbell, P., Hoskins, G., Strachan, H., Wells, M., Cunningham, M., … & Maxwell, M. (2020). Barriers and facilitators to the implementation of the advanced nurse practitioner role in primary care settings: a scoping review. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 104, 103443. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2019.103443
Khezri, H., & Abdekhoda, M. (2019). Assessing nurses’ informatics competency and identifying its related factors. Journal of Research in Nursing, 24(7), 529-538. https://doi.org/10.1177/1744987119839453
Kleinpell, R. M., Grabenkort, W. R., Kapu, A. N., Constantine, R., & Sicoutris, C. (2019). Nurse practitioners and physician assistants in acute and critical care: A concise review of the literature and data 2008–2018. Critical Care Medicine, 47(10), 1442.https://doi.org/10.1097%2FCCM.0000000000003925
Thompson, A. (2019). An educational intervention to enhance nurse practitioner role transition in the first year of practice. Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, 31(1), 24-32. DOI: 10.1097/JXX.0000000000000095