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ADVANCED ROLE IN NURSING 1

Advanced practicing registered nurses (APRNs) serve essential rolesin providing acute care, pediatric care, maternity care, chronicdisease management, adult primary care, and mental health treatment.They are registered nurses who have additional training, education,and certification in a given field of practice. There are manypotential issues which can influence their practice setting. Thispaper covers the legislative issues affecting advanced practicenursing formulates a possible policy change to address that matter.

Legislative Issues Affecting Advanced Practice Nursing

Legal issues affecting advanced practice nursing refer to thepolicies or laws enacted by legislatures to give guidelines in thefield of advanced practice nursing. There are some legal issues,which are very restrictive thus, affect the advanced nursingpractice by hindering APRNs from serving patients better [ CITATION Ste15 l 1033 ].One of these issues is the requirement that APRNs should have atraining arrangement with supervising physicians. Existing healthcarelaws limit them from ordering diagnostic tests and prevent them fromwriting prescriptions for certain medications like Schedule II. Suchlegislative issues deny them the opportunity to practice theirtraining and education to a full limit. Many hospitals have physicianshortage and given that APRNs are restricted to perform certainroles, the healthcare system, particularly primary care, has gaps(Phillips, 2014).

To address this problem, the current health care policies should bechanged to give APRNs full practice authority, for instance, theyshould be authorized to make Schedule II prescriptions and ordertests for radiographic imaging such as CT scans and MRIs duringemergencies. There should be impartial and fair governing boardoversight of APRNs. Access to care should also be improved byauthorizing third-party cover of APRN care and allowing patients toselect providers of their choice. The healthcare workforce shouldalso be given more support by creating more clinical training andgraduate level education opportunities for nurses. The primary goalsfor these changes include giving APRNs the chance to practice theirtraining and education to full limit, filling the gaps created byphysician shortages, and improving healthcare.

Indeed, these changes would improve the services of APRNs andpotentially decrease the cost of healthcare for consumers since APRNswould have the opportunity to practice their training to a fullextent. Furthermore, giving the boards of nursing the capacity todictate APRNs’ practice requirements would increase cooperation andAPRN practice would be less restricted. These changes would alsoincrease competition in the advanced nursing practice as well asincentivize these nurses to practice. They would also attract morenursing graduates to advanced practice nursing thus, addressing thethreat of availability and quality of healthcare. Furthermore,studies show that many patients are satisfied with APRNs’ care andthat the latter outperform physicians on measures that are related toprovision of assessment, counseling, and screening services patientfollow-up and time spent during consultations (Cassidy, 2012).

Conclusion

Even though APRNs serve many patient populations in every type ofhealthcare setting, some legislation issues hinder them from offeringcertain services. Such restrictions lower competition in the advancedpractice nursing and discourage new nursing graduates from joiningthis field. That results in low-quality healthcare therefore, it isimperative to make changes to legislative issues around advancedpractice nursing and give APRNs the authority to practice theireducation and training to a full degree.

References

Cassidy, A. (2012, October 25). Health Policy Brief: Nurse Practitioners and Primary Care. Retrieved from Health Affairs: Available at: http://healthaffairs.org/healthpolicybriefs/brief_pdfs/healthpolicybrief_79.pdf

Phillips, S. J. (2014). 26th Annual Legislative Update: Progress for APRN Authority. The Nurse Practitioner, 29-52.

Stephens, B. J. (2015). Perspectives on Advanced Practice Registered Nursing in Georgia. Atlanta: Georgia Watch.

ADVANCED ROLE OF NURSING 1

AdvancedRole of Nursing

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AdvancedRole of Nursing

I will focus on TITLE III, which deals withImproving the Quality and Effectiveness of Health Care platform. Thesubtitle is (A), section 3021 part (b). Segment 2 of part (b)encompasses selecting the models under study[ CITATION The10 l 1033 ].Further, down you find part B segment(iii) the section dealing with multiple chronic conditions (MCC) andtheir examples. In the same title, section SEC. 3026 (b) (2), youwill find the description of “high-risk Medicare beneficiaries’’and how they are determined using the given criterion of traits.

Reviewingthe Strategic Framework for MCC

HHS recently introduced federal programs tomonitor the MCC issue. This program will either prevent or manage thepreexisting conditions. The program encompasses the HealthCareservices financing, delivery of care to MCC patients, conductingresearch on the issue and implementation of platforms to prevent ormonitor the MCC. Finally, the program would oversee the developmentof nontoxic and efficient drug therapies to deal with such issues.

Primaryobjectives

The main goals for pushing towards the chroniccondition management in the United States are many, but the main onesare about four. The initial goal of this MCC management platform isto foster system changes in the public health and healthcareplatforms thus improving the individual health of MCC patients[ CITATION Rij14 l 1033 ].Another goal of multiple chronicconditions management is to maximize and optimize the usage ofself-care management and other proven, but related services toimprove the quality of life for MCC patients. Another objective thatMCC management aims to achieve is to provide improved platforms,information tools and essential support to public health, socialservices and healthcare providers who have the responsibility ofdelivering Medicare to MCC patients. The final objective of this MCCmanagement platform is to facilitate the necessary research forfilling the existing knowledge goals regarding the interventions andsystems that would benefit MCC patients.

References

Rijken, M. N. (2014). Chronic Disease Management Programmes: an adequate response to patients’ needs? Health Expectations, 17(5), 608-621.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). (2010). Primedia E-launch LLC.