Role of the Nurse Practitioner
Abstract
Nursing plays a critical role in the system of healthcare, as nurses provide primary care for patients and play a major role in the eventual outcomes of care. For this reason, it is critical that the role of a nurse get s advanced to help manage the shortages in nurses, which has become a major problem in the United States healthcare system, especially after the reforms in health got made. Nurse practitioners are an essential part of healthcare as they play a significant role in the provision of preventive care. The various roles that nurse practitioners play include providing diagnosis and treating conditions that are chronic like high blood pressure, infections, diabetes, and injuries; ordering, performance and interpretation of diagnostic tests like x-rays and laboratory work; management of the overall care of the patients, and medication prescriptions and other treatments. This paper seeks to select and describe a role of an advanced nurse practitioner, explain my reasons for wanting to become a nurse practitioner, discuss an expert opinion about the role of a nurse practitioner, establish what the Institute of Medicine says about the need of nurse practitioners, and make identification and description of the effects that I will have as an advanced practice nurse in terms of patient outcomes and the healthcare industry.
Advanced Nurse Practitioner role
Advanced nurse practitioners are autonomous in decision making on the basis of assessments, diagnosis, and the interpretation of the results for tests. Advanced nurse practitioners (ANPs) can independently make prescriptions for medication that are appropriate, evaluate the conditions of patients, and refer other specialists when the need arises (Osho, 2019). The role of an ANP provides patients with an opportunity to receive care that is timely and avoid the delay that is unnecessary in the reception of healthcare, most especially due to the shortage of General practitioners in primary care in health care organizations. Advanced nurse practitioners in primary care are able to create long term and close relationships with their patients and partner with them in the achievement of optimum outcomes in health care. The advanced skills that advanced nurse practitioners are equipped with are essential in managing the high number of patients living with conditions that are chronic and the increasing population of aging.
Reasons for becoming a nurse practitioner
An opportunity to address the various patient needs
Being a nurse practitioner provides an opportunity for me to help in the provision of quality care for the patients in healthcare organizations by using the skills I acquired in training as a nurse practitioner. I am able to use my unique skills to better the health of my patients and improve the outcomes of care. Being a nurse practitioner provides me with an opportunity to have a career that is rewarding as I will be able to work with a patient in an all-round way in that I will be able to be involved in the various aspects of their health including their home environment, and gain a better understanding of the challenges they may have been facing. Apart from diagnosing and prescribing medication, I will also be able to advise the patients accordingly with regard to ways through which they can maintain a lifestyle that is healthy.
Physician privileges
A nurse practitioner has a role that is similar to that of a physician in the sense that he can make an interpretation of diagnostic tests, create plans for treatment, treat patients, make a diagnosis and refer the patients to the appropriate specialists on the basis of the diagnosis they make on a particular condition. The reason for wanting to be a physician is that it provides me with a chance to be a part of a team that is larger in the provision of healthcare and working together towards meeting the various needs of the patients. The patients are able to receive treatment and care that is timely as nurse practitioners help in the reduction of waiting time by putting to use their advanced skills that the other nurses do not have.
Increased demand
Another valid reason for wanting to be a nurse practitioner is that my services will be on high demand especially based on the fact that nurse practitioners have been ranked among the top five careers that are on high demand. There will be an immense number of opportunities for jobs based on the fact that there is a shortage of nurses, and statistics clearly provide that the field is expected to have a significant growth in the coming years (Van der Biezen et al., 2017). Therefore, a nurse practitioner will not lack patients and thus cannot run out of opportunities for jobs.
Making a difference
Being a nurse practitioner presents me with an opportunity to make a difference in the community as well as in the general healthcare field through evidence-based care provision. Using research to enhance the quality of care will help significantly in making a direct positive impact on the lives of the patients that I will be taking care of. Ensuring that patient satisfaction gets achieved is rewarding to the nurse practitioner and the patients as well. The needs of the patients from different backgrounds, races, cultures, and ages get achieved, causing the nurse practitioner to be satisfied with their work too.
Expert opinion about the Nurse Practitioner role
Bondurant & Armstrong (2016)
The article by the authors above presents an opinion regarding how nurses can lead change and create a transformation in care. In this article, the authors focus on how change can be achieved by transforming the needs of nurses in alignment with education, practice, and leadership. Through education which advances their skill set, nurse practitioners can get trained to manage the various aspects of healthcare by getting training on the roles from the bedside to the boardroom in that they are not viewed as just caregivers, but also agents for change, leaders, advocates and influencers in the field of care. The experts argue that nurses in the exercise of their role as leaders should move beyond the management of the healthcare organization’s discrete parts to the integration of the various parts of the organization through the use of the systems thinking in order to achieve excellence in their operations in the provision of quality care and achievement of positive patient outcomes. The article talks about the future of nursing by laying focus on the transformation of care through the improvement of skills and provision of advanced nursing education, redesigning or designing teams and systems in healthcare, reducing cost and waste, and outcome improvement. The experts in this article basically address the roles of nurse practitioners in the redesign of the system of health care provision.
What the Institute of Medicine (IOM) says about the need of Nurse Practitioners
In its 2010 report, the Institute of Medicine provided a warning that the profession of nursing had to change for the purpose of meeting the emerging, growing demands that were brought about by the healthcare reforms including the Affordable Care Act, the aging population and the emerging technologies (Palatnik, 2016). The report was about the future of nursing, and it stated that nurses should achieve higher training and education levels through a system of education that is improved and one that promotes academic progression that is seamless. The IOM report further provided that nurses should be partners with other professionals in healthcare, including physicians in the process of redesigning health care in America (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2016). In this case by training nurse practitioners in the necessary skills to be able to make a diagnosis, provide prescriptions and treatments to patients, make specialist recommendations among other roles, they will be able to have the same roles as those of physicians in healthcare and thus, help in the enhancement of quality care as well as help the healthcare system meet the growing demand.
Effects as an advanced practice nurse
Increase service efficiency and access to healthcare
An advanced practice nurse has the right training to be able to assume some of the roles of the physicians in the provision of care, which helps improve efficiency and reduce the cost of care provision (Woo et al., 2017). Healthcare becomes more accessible as the nurse practitioner is able to mitigate costs and ensure that the patients are able to receive care that is affordable.
Positive effects on clinical outcomes
An advanced practice nurse is able to provide safe and effective care, which leads to the achievement of patient satisfaction. With this, the return visits to the emergency room get reduced, which leads to the reduction of costs and the achievement of positive outcomes in care. In some instances, it got reported that the quality of care provided by ANPs was better than that provided by physicians (Woo et al., 2017). Emergency ANPs get training on the management of patients in patients in settings for acute care in conditions that are limb or life-threatening.
Meeting the primary care needs.
The APN has the effect of meeting the needs of patients in primary care due to the shortage of physicians in primary care. They coordinate care in accordance with the needs of the patient, thus ensuring care continuity within the system of healthcare. They have a significant effect in ensuring that the needs of the patients in primary care in the undeserved or rural populations get met (Woo et al., 2017). This helps ensure that care is accessible to the populations that find it easy to access care due to issues regarding accessibility and other factors.
References
Bondurant, P. G., & Armstrong, L. (2016). Nurses: Leading Change and Transforming Care—Expert Opinion. Newborn and Infant Nursing Reviews, 16(3), 155-160.
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2016). Assessing Progress on the Institute of Medicine report The Future of Nursing. National Academies Press.
Osho, Y. (2019). The Role of the Advanced Nurse Practitioner. Retrieved from https://www.independentnurse.co.uk/blogs-article/the-role-of-the-advanced-nurse-practitioner/213167/#Comment125202
Palatnik, A. (2016). The future of nursing: leading change, advancing health. How are we doing?
Van der Biezen, M., Derckx, E., Wensing, M., & Laurant, M. (2017). Factors influencing the decision of general practitioners and managers to train and employ a nurse practitioner or physician assistant in primary care: a qualitative study. BMC family practice, 18(1), 1-10.
Woo, B. F. Y., Lee, J. X. Y., & San Tam, W. W. (2017). The impact of the advanced practice nursing role on the quality of care, clinical outcomes, patient satisfaction, and cost in the emergency and critical care settings: a systematic review—human resources for health, 15(1), 63.