nursing license and process

Value of Professional Credentialing in the Health Care Industry Discussion of the intended role of licensing and credentialing It crucial that process of conforming credentials and licensing be done in the health care sector.

The role of licensing, credentialing and certification in any field, and particularly in the field of health care and medicines is critical because these processes by government and other accredited agencies are essential to ensure that all practitioners in a particular field, and in the health care field in particular, have the requisite training and knowledge and, if existent, the experience also, in order to perform their duties well as a qualified professionals in their respective fields (Smith, 2015).

Another important aspect or aim of engaging and ensuring that people and organizations go through the process of licensing and credentialing is to help protect the patients and the consumers and therefore apart from the predominant use of these processes in the healthcare field, they are being used more and more in public health and many other regulated professions. Depending on the stream of healthcare, the processes of licensing and credentialing have varying terms of licensing and credentialing.

It also depends on the particular local government or agency who may have additional norms to meet the local demands expected from the professionals. However, within the healthcare context, there are differences between licensing and credentialing as understood by the professionals and agencies ("Self-regulation of Professionals in Health Care," 2000).

For example, licensing is generally referred to as the formal recognition of a professional by a government regulatory agency or a recognized body about a person having passed all the qualifications that are necessary to practice a particular profession, applicable for a doctor or a nurse, within a particular area under the jurisdiction of the agency or body. This area can be a state or the entire country. Some form of a combination of that includes education, training and examination that demonstrate competency is typically required for licensure.

Such licensure requirements can also involve re-examination and a continuing process of education and training to keep the license valid after a certain point in time ("Position Statement on Credentialing and Privileging for Nurse Practitioners," 2016). Also, a professional licensed in a particular area of jurisdiction, wants to obtain a license for the same profession in another area of jurisdiction, then the existing license would also serve as a part of the process of licensing in the new area of jurisdiction.

On the other hand credentialing is generally considered to be the process where an employer, most often a hospital or a health maintenance organization (HMO), certifies after verification that a professional practitioner possesses the required education and the training and experience that would allow that professional to practice in a particular area.

The types of credential and the process of verification which any hospital or any other healthcare provider has to address while credentialing a practitioner are sometimes specified by state or local laws and regulations ("Position Statement on Credentialing and Privileging for Nurse Practitioners," 2016).

Hence it can be said that the roles of licensing and credentialing are very crucial for any medical or health professional to continue with his or her profession as well as it can be a guidance for others to judge the quality and experience of a particular professional (Rudov & Skillings, 1975).

Such licensing and credentialing processes are also important in the health care sector especially in the area dealing with emergency services where the qualifications and the experience of the professionals can mean the difference between life and death of patients. The Intended Role of Self-Regulation in Relation to Licensing and Credentialing Traditionally in most of the developed countries including the United States, the medical profession has traditionally been the best example of a profession that was self-regulated and enjoyed deep public trust.

This profession was given the privilege to self-regulate through the process of licensing and credentialing. However in recent years and especially in eth second half of the twentieth century, questions about the self-regulations were raised on the profession due to the erosion of public confidence (Smith, 2015). A complex web of the interconnected web of professional regulations and private credentials is woven every time a physician examines a patient and provides a treatment.

The regulatory system of licensing and credentialing is such that they tend to regulate who enters a profession and who is kept out of it, depending on a set of predetermined qualification standards. Now the rationale for enforcing self-regulation in licensing and credentialing process in health care flows from the public policy perspective of the need for patient protection. It is assumed that there would be a significant difference, in general, in knowledge, skills and expertise compared to doctors, physicians and caregivers on issues of health care.

Therefore, the patients have almost no alternative but to rely heavily on these medical professionals ("Allied health services: avoiding crises," 1989). Now one of the most important drivers that patients would look out for in health care professionals is the license and the credentials that they possess. These are given by the agencies and bodies which have to have absolute credibility with respect to the selection of the professionals to license and grant credentials.

Self-regulation is therefore important for these licensing and credentialing agencies and bodies so that the right health caregivers are accredited and presented with the license to treat people (Baron & Johnson, 2014) Self-regulation is also important so that people can maintain the trust on not only these agencies but also on the physicians and those health care professionals who get licensed or get credentials. Self-regulations have to primarily deal with being ethical about the granting of these credentials and licenses of health care professionals.

This would prevent, for example, physicians from misrepresenting qualifications or making unjust and unfounded claims for cures and to prevent failure in exercising due diligence while providing car and even to prevent in getting engaged in any other form of malfeasance ("Allied health services: avoiding crises," 1989). Evaluation of self-regulation on the sustainability of health care organizations and quality of patient care As already discussed, the practice of self-regulations is directly related to the trust that patients have on their health caregivers.

Also, the type of treatment they would receive would also depend on the credentials of the caregivers. Now if self-regulation is absent the licensing and credentialing become unethical and unregulated, the patients would lose faith the trust on not only a particular health care professional but on the entire system as well. Moreover, if there are health.