Nursing: Nurse Practitioner
The advanced practice nurse is a graduate with a master's or doctorate degree in nursing, certified to guide others in using the nursing process to maximize the community's health outcomes (Smith & Rose, 2011). These nurses are prepared to pursue either direct practice roles, where they interact directly with families and patients to improve their well-being through disease management, or indirect practice roles, where they take a leadership role in the provision of care, but do not engage directly with patients (National CNS Competency Taskforce, 2008). Examples of indirect care activities include developing staff development activities, protocols of care and evidence-based guidelines. Specific direct care roles include nurse clinicians (practitioner) and nurse educators, whereas indirect roles include nurse administrator, nurse informatics, and nurse researchers (AACN, 2015). This text compares and contrasts the core competencies that govern the different roles, and identifies the differences/similarities in the implementation of competencies within the selected roles.
Background of Nursing Competencies
The term 'competency' refers to a person's ability to use their skill and knowledge in a particular area to effectively carry out critical tasks and job functions. The nursing profession has a set of competencies that practitioners are required to meet to be able to conduct their duties effectively. These include:
Communication - the ability to effectively pass information across to a wide variety of audiences
Research -- the ability to generate and apply research data to their area of practice with the aim of initiating change and improving practice
Healthcare, Organization and Policy Financing -- the ability to analyze and understand policy research relevant to their area of practice, and to consequently use it to make cost-effective healthcare choices and ensure quality patient care.
Ethics -- the ability to identify ethical dilemmas, effectively evaluate ethical decision-making, identify conflicts of interest, and take accountability for their own practice
Professional Role Development -- the ability to demonstrate leadership in the delivery of nursing education and healthcare or when the healthcare system calls for change, and to exhibit professional assertiveness...
The specific competencies that govern the different roles independently are discussed in the subsequent subsections.
Direct Care Roles
These, as already mentioned, are roles that require the practitioner to engage directly with patients, patent groups, and families. The most common direct care roles are the nurse practitioner role and the nurse educator role. The nurse practitioner applies their advanced knowledge and their physical and environmental assessment skills to manage clients' illness and health problems (Smith & Rose, 2011). They diagnose both potential and actual health problems, make decisions on treatment plans, and engage with clients on how disability can be limited, chronic disease managed, and overall health improved. Nurse educators, on the other hand, are responsible for among educating families and communities on the importance of healthy lifestyles, stress management, physical exercise, and good nutrition; and providing counseling on medications, birth control methods, and the need to assume responsibility for one's own health (Smith & Rose, 2011).
The core-competencies associated with these roles, unlike those of the indirect care roles, are, therefore, largely focused on maintaining healthy client-practitioner relationships (National CNS Competency Taskforce, 2008). They include:
Clinical judgment - the ability to conduct holistic and comprehensive illness and wellness assessments using innovative evidence-based tools to develop differential plans of care and diagnoses, and to consequently provide comprehensive treatment plans (National CNS Competency Taskforce, 2008). Further, this competency covers the ability to analyze and understand the role of context and etiologies in disease and illness and to select the best suited…
