Advance Practice Nursing Analysis

Introduction

Advance practice Nursing origins date back more than a century. Advance practice nursing roles do not stand apart from nursing rather it builds on foundation and core values of nursing discipline (Hamric, Hanson, Tracy & O’Grady, 2014). Advance practice nurses (APN’s) are distinctive of other healthcare professionals such as doctors and physician assistants because of their holistic approach and its nursing framework at its core. Barbara J Safriet’s article ‘Health care dollars and regulatory sense: The role of advanced practice nursing’ highlights the effectives of APN’s in terms of both quality and cost effectiveness and challenges barriers to practice. This paper is the reaction to the article and will identify the two issues

Interestingly, OTA analysis revealed that out of 14 studies reviewed, 12 studies showed the quality of care given by NP’s was better than physicians. Quality of care was measured by number of diagnostic tests, interpersonal management, thoroughness of tests and documentation and outcome measures such as reduction in patient symptoms, control or managed chronic care condition, lower hospitalizations etc. Most importantly patient satisfaction was equal and in some cases, higher with NPs care as compared to physicians. Nurse practitioners have continued to provide high quality care and this has not changed. There has been a lot of supportive literature in recent times on NP’s high quality care. According to Bauer (2010), the internationally recognized Cochrane collaboration published a detailed review of more than 30 studies that suggests patient care outcomes with NP provided care are similar to physician provided care and Np’s scored better on subjective areas of quality measure such as patient satisfaction than

The article grabbed the attention of many including the legislators and policy makers who failed to recognize the contribution of nurse practitioners in making healthcare more affordable and accessible. The aftermath of this article is the current state of advance nursing practice. Even though we have not overcome all the barriers but there has been a lot of improvements in existing barriers. As Safriet mentioned in her article that nurse practitioners can be fundamental in restructuring the complex healthcare system. Nurse practitioners have repeatedly proved that they can provide cost-effective and high quality care to patients of all