Access, Cost, and Quality for Advanced Practice Nursing (APNs)

Introduction

Provision of quality healthcare requires reasonable and appropriate treatment plans, access, an adequately qualified workforce, and responsible patient follow-through. People of all ages, particularly the elderly, usually require critical and emergency care services (Woo et al., 2017). This is due to rising cases of chronic illnesses, thus, the need for a more qualified workforce to provide such services. With an increasing demand for healthcare services, the effective utilization of advanced practice nurses is paramount to guarantee cost-effective and high-quality health services accessible to everyone. In some countries, healthcare wages total around 50 percent of healthcare expenditure (Joel, 2017). Therefore, regulatory cost strategies must be adopted to receive quality healthcare services. Various states are implementing measures to enhance access by increasing APN capacity.

According to research findings, the global annual growth of advanced practice nurses is approximately three to nine times more than physicians. Health policymakers should, as a result, ensure the proper utilization of advanced practice nurses (Joel, 2017). The roles of advanced practice nurses were first introduced to offer a solution to meet the primary care needs of the underserved and rural population due to the absence of enough primary care physicians (Abraham et al., 2019). Basic care has initial contact with patients and then, through coordination of care in line with patients' requirements, provides continuity of health services within healthcare systems. Evaluation of primary care quality provided by the advanced practice nurses has been established to be similar to that of physicians in terms of safety and effectiveness.

In addition, since the establishment of advanced nursing in primary care, its services have expanded to cover other healthcare contexts like acute care (Woo et al., 2017). Patients with critical illness, complex acute, and unstable chronic conditions are given short-term restorative stabilization through acute care. Acute care covers critical care and emergencies. Advanced practice nurses have similarities with primary and emergency care nursing practice because they both serve first-contact access to healthcare (Joel, 2017). Moreover, advanced practice nurses are trained to hand patients with limb-threatening or acute life conditions. Within the past decades, advanced practice nurses had autonomy in critical and emergency care (Free, 2004). However, due to the expansion of APN roles, they undertook some tasks initially performed by physicians only. As a result, service efficiency and healthcare access are enhanced and, at the same time, mitigate the cost of healthcare services.

Access, Cost, and Quality of Quality Environments, as well as Recent Quality Initiatives

Cost, quality, and access are the critical aspects of the provision of healthcare services. Cost is usually the payment made to the healthcare provider by the client seeking healthcare services. Access, however, refers to having...…patients' welfare. As a result, the quality of the environment of work for APNs substantially impacts the healthcare quality provided as well as the safety of patients.

Consequently, healthcare quality enhancement includes a systematic and organized approach by healthcare institutions in assessing, monitoring, and enhancing the quality of healthcare standards. Programs that enhance healthcare quality require continuous improvement to ensure improvement and higher performance levels are achieved (Woo et al. 2017). Progressive improvement and scaling of healthcare programs can transform healthcare institutions from old and ineffective perspectives to using technologies and tools that deliver effective performance to produce quality results. Quality enhancement is directly correlated to healthcare efficacy, patient satisfaction, the efficiency of the outcome, and care delivery.

Conclusion

It is beneficial and appealing to capitalize on advanced practice nurses to enhance patients' access to critical and emergency care. According to the literature, the enaction of APN role in critical and emergency care context and primary care promotes patient outcomes (Joel, 2017). Also, according to research findings, the global annual growth of advanced practice nurses is approximately three to nine times more than physicians. Health policymakers should, as a result, ensure the proper utilization of advanced practice nurses (Woo et al. 2017). Finally, With the increasing demand for healthcare services, effective utilization of advanced practice nurses is paramount to guarantee cost-effective and high-quality health services accessible to…