Advanced Nurse Practitioners Provide Health

Advanced nurse practitioners provide health care services in their areas of specialty. This specialty is determined by their education and certification levels. According to DeLaune & Ladner (2002, p.71), Advanced Practice Registered Nurses "possess advanced skills and in-depth knowledge in specific areas of practice. Even though there are differences in various advanced practice roles, all APRNs are experts who work with clients to prevent disease and to promote health." In the light of this definition, let us now see how different is a ANP from a regular nurse practitioner.

Comparison with nurse practitioners

The American Association of Colleges of Nursing's (AACN) position statement on the certification and regulation of advanced practice nurses states that "advanced practice nurse is an umbrella term appropriate for a licensed registered nurse prepared at the graduate degree level as either a CNS, NA, NM or NP." (Groenwald, 1997: p.1758). In general, the belief is that ANP has a Master's degree over a NP who has a Bachelor's degree. Besides education, when a nurse is involved in teaching, management, research and plays a part in constructive application of research, he or she is considered to be an advanced nurse practitioner. (Wilson-Barnett & Beech, 1994). The Arkansas State Board of Nursing states that ANPs can provide individual health care for patients, focus on the effects of the health problem on family, explain the health problems and the effects of medications, emphasize on self-care and manage their own case-load.

ANPs and ICD-9 diagnosis codes

ICD-9 stands for the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision and it is the international format for collection and presentation of mortality statistics. Published by the World Health Organization (WHO), it also describes a format for death certificate. It gives preferences to some categories and consolidates the different conditions present at the time of occurrence of death. This makes it easy to determine the single cause of death from the surrounding conditions. The single cause of death is called the underlying cause and the other reported causes are non-underlying causes. Such a clear format can help the dead person's family to claim reimbursements, if they are eligible for it.

ANPs do the best diagnosis for the ICD-9 codes. In a data mining study conducted by Trangenstein, Weiner, Gordon and McNew, it was found that the ANPs scored over ACNP and FNP in determining the ICD-9 codes of death for diabetes and essential HTN. There are numerous reasons for the success of ANPs in this field over other nursing groups. Firstly, they are specialized in a certain area of medicine and this helps them to gain superior knowledge on the causes of death. So, they have the best chance of isolating the underlying cause from the non-underlying causes. They are well-versed in the structure and classification of the ICD-9 codes as well and this helps them to better report the mortality.

Another reason is ANPs have the independence to handle their case load and they are able to better understand the patient's health problems. This gives them a close interaction with the patient and a better understanding of the case history helps them to diagnose ICD-9 codes better. They also get an opportunity to interact with the family members of the patients and this can sometimes help to identify the right causes. These are some of the reasons why ANPs are better-suited to diagnose ICD-9 codes so that it can help the family to claim any reimbursements.

How do ANPs decide the best diagnosis?

ANPs work closely with the patients to diagnose and treat their medical conditions. They have the training and certification required to perform the diagnosis. Most ANPs are certified by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) and the National Certificate Corporation (NCC).