Advanced Nursing Practice Defining Advanced

¶ … Advanced Nursing Practice

Defining Advanced Practice Nursing

Advanced Practice Nurses (APRNs) and are licensed Registered Nurses (RNs) who have pursued advanced educational degrees, typically master's level degrees in specialized areas of nursing. Generally, APRNs are more thoroughly prepared than RNs to provide for the comprehensive care of patients across a broader range of needs arising from disease and illness as well as in connection to supporting wellness and general health. The route to becoming a Nurse Practitioner requires first achieving a bachelor's degree and then a subsequent master's degree in Nursing, followed by achieving national certification and demonstrating professional competencies. In principle, the defining characteristic that distinguishes the APRN from the RN is that APRNs are better qualified to provide nursing services autonomously and with less direction from physicians (NCBON, 2011).

The Advanced Practice Nursing Role in Healthcare

Generally, advanced practice nursing comprises four specific roles or sub-specialties: Nurse Practitioner, Clinical Nurse Specialist, Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist, and Certified Nurse Midwife (Hamric, Spross, & Hanson, 2009). In principle, advanced practice nursing differs from traditional nursing by virtue of the degree that advanced nursing practice emphasizes nursing theory, and the practical application of evidence-based research knowledge directly to the clinical setting (Hamric, Spross, & Hanson, 2009). One of the most significant roles of advanced practice nurses is their responsibilities as liaisons between physicians and patients. In contemporary clinical medicine, patients actually interact with nurses much more than with physicians and rely on them tremendously to inform and educate them. The continual pressure on physicians to treat high volumes of patients in short amounts time has greatly increased their reliance on APRNs in that capacity (Laurent et. al, 2005).

Advance Practice Nurses, Physicians Assistants, Registered Nurses and Physicians

Physicians naturally have the most authority over patient care and in the traditional relationship between physicians and RNs, physicians directly control and must specifically authorize the clinical responsibilities of nurses. Advanced Practice Nurses enjoy a greater degree of autonomy and make certain independent decisions within a broader range of authority granted by physicians. Individual state laws define more particularly the exact functions that APRNs are authorized to perform (NCBON, 2011). Physician assistants and Nurse Practitioners perform specific clinical medical functions traditionally reserved exclusively to physicians such as prescribing medications and performing minor medical procedures (Hamric, Spross, & Hanson, 2009).

Promoting Advanced Practice Nursing to the Public