Uncategorized

Nurse Practitioners’ Work Features Essay

Should an NP who is educationally prepared as an acute care NP work in an adult primary care setting?

A nurse practitioner (NP) who is educationally prepared as an acute care NP should not work in an adult primary setting because of several reasons. All NPs have to be certified in a specific way. Klein (2007) underlines that the opportunities for NPs to work in acute-care settings continue generating new questions due to the narrow practice arena and limited competencies. Graduation of NPs presupposes the possibility to work under a specialty focus that is acute, episodic, or critical conditions. Nurse Practitioners’ Work Features Essay

Therefore, even being educationally prepared, nurses do not have enough knowledge, experience, and rights to work out of the scope of the chosen practice, diagnose adult patients who ask for primary care, develop treatment plans, and establish follow-up. The environment of primary care varies from one of acute care. Any NP will be challenged by the necessity to promote safety, meet the expectations of patients and their families, and offer required help.

Another important aspect of the scope of practice for NPs includes licensing and certification. Despite the existing nationwide standards in nursing education, laws and regulations may vary across the states (Perloff, Clarke, DesRoches, O’Reilly-Jacob, & Buerhaus, 2017). The state can place some limits on NP autonomy to improve the quality of care that should be offered by physicians. However, the list of standards to which NPs may be held is long.Nurse Practitioners’ Work Features Essay

Therefore, it is expected to use the offered certificates to validate if a healthcare provider meets all criteria and understand the scope of the chosen practice. The National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties is the author of the current core competencies for some NP specialties (Klein, 2007). These competencies promote frameworks for NPs from different nursing fields. Nurses can always address this source to find out if they are competent enough to change the scope of practice and start working with patients in new settings.

Is it within the scope for an FNP to diagnose and treat uncomplicated mental health conditions like depression, anxiety, and ADHD?

Many patients with attention deficit disorder (ADHD) suffer from anxiety or depression from time to time. As a rule, comorbid mental health complications predict poor outcomes and treatment resistance (Coplan, Aaronson, Panthangi, & Kim, 2015). Therefore, the special attention of a psychiatrist and a physician is usually required. However, when these mental health conditions are defined as uncomplicated, it is within the scope for a family nurse practitioner (FNP) to diagnose and treat depression, anxiety, or ADHD in the context of primary care. Nurse Practitioners’ Work Features Essay

The scope of FNP practice is usually defined during the program. As a rule, certification exams occur at the end and define the setting where an FNP can work (Hanlon, 2015). Even if nurses are not able to diagnose and treat patients independently, they are informed about the benefits of collaboration and information exchange. A mental health provider is responsible for developing a diagnosis and a treatment plan, and an FNP may participate in periodic management to improve the experience and gain new knowledge without serious complications and unwanted responsibilities. Nurse Practitioners’ Work Features Essay