Nursing Practitioner
The Advanced Nursing Practitioner (ANP) possesses the expertise to function as a superior general practice nurse in providing health care for a wide scope of health care and social needs of patients. The patient who has been placed under primary care can consult the ANP in cases where the general practitioner is unavailable. In this respect, the nursing practitioner can provide primary care to the patient and even agree on a patient care plan in partnership with other health care providers who are part of the health care team.
According to Barr, Stainsby, Dryden, and Aston (2015), the ANP has a specific developmental role that entails assisting in expanding and accommodating health care services to the community through advocating for proper use of resources. The competency framework of the ANP also entails providing guidance to other health care professionals in the field of primary care.
Nurse Educator
The nurse instructor has an advanced role in the devising, execution, evaluation, and amendment of nursing instruction curriculum for both intellectual and ongoing learners. These education programs encompass courses that lead to the award of a certificate, diploma, or degree in nursing. The continuing or informal programs are aimed at meeting individual educational or learning needs. Therefore, the Advanced Nurse Educator has an instrumental role in guaranteeing quality-learning experiences that amply prepare qualified nurses for a diverse and dynamic health care environment.
As Jackson et al. (2008) reveal, such nursing instructors also have a role in management when it comes to the recording the results of nursing instructive courses in the US and/or in directing their learners throughout the scholarship practice. Superior nursing instructors also possess an unspecified directorial role in supervising staff in learning institutions and other hospital-oriented nursing centers. Here, they are able to work with nursing students by developing their knowledge and skills in nursing care and practice.
Nurse Informaticist
The American Nurses Association defines nursing informatics as an area of expertise that incorporates information comprehension, care-giving skills, and computer understanding to assist in the administration of data handling structures and care-giving tasks. Therefore, the advanced nursing informaticist shares a sophisticated role in integrating information technology, nursing science, and computer science in the management and practice of nursing. Regarding research competency, the nursing informaticist is expected to possess skills in computer science, information technology, and informatics.
He or she also needs to have reasonable expertise and experience in nursing to understand the pivotal role, including the challenges of advanced nursing practice in health care (Darvish, Bahramnezhad, Keyhanian, & Navidhamidi, 2014).
Nurse Administrator
Nurse administrators play an important role in shaping the nursing profession in the US and around the globe. In the US, for instance, nurse administrators can be, but not with restriction, CEOs, health care supervisors, certified practice bosses, dictatorial organ commissioners, representatives, and even administration spokespersons. Some of the essential qualities required of nurse administrators in helping them to dispense their advanced roles include good communication and articulation skills, advocacy for quality care, risk taking, mentorship, and the ability to be a visionary or role model. Such qualities are essential when dealing with the complex challenges facing nursing care and healthcare in general.
Monaghan (2011) highlights the unique role of nurse administrators. They provide health care education, facilitate certification of nursing programs, and/or develop new initiatives in nursing education.
Regulatory and Legal Requirements ANP in New Jersey
To practice advanced nursing in New Jersey, the APN must hold a Registered Nurse (RN) license that has been issued by the New Jersey Board of Nursing. To be registered by the New Jersey Board of Nursing, the nursing practitioner must have completed his or her nursing studies in advanced practice role and graduated before pursuing national and state certification. However, the ANP can apply for temporary accreditation pending national or state certification examinations. The nurse practitioners should also present their clinical background history to ascertain that they are of good moral and integral character (Nursing Licensure, 2013).
The State of New Jersey has also provided the detailed principle that must be adhered to when it comes to the delaying, cancelling, or failure to renew a nurse practitioner’s permit by the board. In this particular regard, NCSBN (2011) reveals several reasons why the board may withdraw, suspend, or deny the renewal of license. They include:
- Willful misrepresentation or fraud in relation to application for certification or license renewal;
- Incompetency or lack of fitness;
- Conduct in a way that demeans the nursing profession;
- Willful non-conformity to prescribed curriculum, rules, standards, and regulations;
- Willful violation according to the Nursing Act;
- Conviction by trial, non vult, plea of guilty, and nolo contendere of a criminal act that involves moral turpitude.
Available Professional Organizations
American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP)
The AANP is an organization that was formed in 2013. It was the first organization formed for NPs emanating from all specialties in nursing care in the US. It is also the largest full-service nurse practitioners’ organization of all specialties. The organization is responsible for representing the interests of nurse practitioners who are working in the United States. It is also involved in the advocacy of recognizing nurse practitioners as providers. It fights for personalized, quality, and cost-effective health care at the local, state, and national levels (AANP, 2016).
American Academy for Nurse Practitioners National Certification Program
The purpose of this organization is to provide reliable and validated programs for nurse practitioners at the entry level through the recognition of their academic qualifications, knowledge, skills, and professional experience. The organization has provided a process for validating qualification, knowledge, and expertise in advanced primary care of prospective members (AANPCP, 2016).
Specialist Care Nursing Practitioner Organizations
Other specialist care nursing organizations are available such as National Association for Pediatric Nurse Practitioners, and American Academy of Emergency Nurse Practitioners among others. Such organizations involve areas of specialties such as mental health, geriatrics, women health, school health, and other health settings.
Required Competencies and Certification
Regarding competency, the advanced nurse practitioner should verify the completion of the following courses: pharmacology, pharmacokinetics, and practical application in the use of pharmacological agents in disease prevention and restoration of health. Most states, including New Jersey, require the advanced nurse practitioner to deliver quality primary care to patients in hospitals, schools, community clinics, and other health care settings. The nursing practitioner should also possess advanced skills in diagnosis and treatment of common ailments or injuries. He or she should demonstrate the capability to provide immunizations, conduct physical examinations, and/or manage chronic diseases such as diabetes and CVS-related problems (Lowe, Plummer, O’Brien, & Boyd, 2012).
Several national certifying agencies for advanced nursing practitioners are available. Moreover, the selection of the specific agency depends on the particular specialty of the nurse practitioner. With reference to New Jersey State, the board recognizes 17 specialty areas for advanced nurse practitioners. The state will accept certifications of advanced nursing practice that have been issued by nurse practitioners’ agencies that have been accredited by the Nursing Commission of Certifying Agencies (NCCA) or the American Board of Nursing Specialties (NBNS) (Nursing Licensure, 2013).
Possible Work Environment
Organization and Setting
The types of organizations that are fit for practice for the advanced nurse practitioner include walk in clinics, private clinics, health departments, universities/colleges/schools, public and private hospitals, health maintenance organizations, and nursing homes. In terms of settings, most advanced nursing practitioners end up practicing in areas that are directly linked to health care, particularly primary and acute care settings such as pediatric health, adult health, family health, geriatric health, neonatal care, mental health, school and/or college health, and women health or midwifery (Cherry & Jacob, 2016).
Population
Some of the patient populations that I may encounter as an advanced nurse practitioner include elderly populace, neonates, mentally ill patients, adult population, families and pregnant women, and women with other health-related or gynecological problems or issues.
Colleagues
Since advanced nursing practitioners cannot function or work in isolation, collaboration and partnership with other health care professionals in the multidisciplinary health team becomes an integral part of their advanced practice. Health care workers who are members of the multi-disciplinary team include general practitioners, allied health professionals, nurses, specialists, and consultants.
Leadership Style: Transformational Leader
My leadership style has allowed me to be a role model to other members of my team. Such members respect me as a leader. They trust that I can make sound decisions that guarantee successful completion of a particular task. My leadership style also enables me to motivate others to commit and focus on the possible result for a task through encouraging and appreciating members of my team.
I am also able to transform people through encouraging creativity and innovation. To achieve this goal, I stimulate the rest of my team members to think critically to solve problems that arise while handling a task. I am also able to consider each member of my team through providing individual coaching lessons. I am also able to encourage each individual member of my team in achieving his or her goal in completing a certain task.
Leadership Attributes I Possess or Lack
Some of the leadership attributes that I possess include keeping my ego under check, self-motivation, risk taker, ability to make difficult decisions, ability to support others, and the ability to ask for diverse perspectives from others regarding a particular task. I also demonstrate the ability to identify weaknesses and strength of each member of my team, ability to convince others, and the ability to respond to urgent situations calmly.
The main leadership attribute that I lack is patience. I often find myself irritated when a member of my team fails to attend to his or her task well or fails to understand how to go about a particular task even after correcting him or her.
How to attain Patience and Ability to make Decisions on My Own
Boyd (2014) suggests six steps to becoming a patient leader. First, she suggests improving communication between the leader and members of a team and taking time to solve problem of each of the team member. Besides, by trusting the team members, a leader can illustrate patience and confidence and even mentor them to improve their performance on a particular task. Respect is usually earned. Showing respect to my team members by working through issues that affect them will help me to develop patience.
To evaluate the missing attributes, I may expose myself to other people for a specific length of time to assess my persistence/patience. I may also assess whether I am able to take responsibility for my team’s actions. The results may be instrumental in helping me to attain patience and/or employ it in my leadership style.
Current Policy and Areas of Concern
Health Care Spending and Pricing
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s current policy fails to cater for the high spending by the country, which advocates for nearly 20% of the GDP. One of the policies that can help curb the price of care in the end and/or improve the accessibility of insurance and treatment is a robust price transparency health policy. Price transparency as a health policy can be useful in controlling the prices of health care services by organizations through the promotion of competitive pricing.
Such a policy can help consumers to gather information regarding the prices of health care by various organizations, compare them, and/or determine the affordability of seeking health care in a particular organization of interest (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2015).
Early Childhood Interventions Policy
The current policy on early childhood intervention focuses on academics, rather than a more holistic approach that addresses behavioral, social, emotional, and physical health, as well as developing the academic potential of the child (White et al, 2014). Children, especially those in pre-school, need a whole child or holistic approach that requires health organizations to reach out to homes.
The key issue facing the current policy is lack of proper resource allocation that targets parents who are unable to provide wholesome care to their children due to financial restrictions or other pertinent issues involved in parenting such as abuse, neglect, and exposure to violence. Therefore, the holistic approach goes beyond exploring the academic potential of the child with emphasis on the acquisition of emotional and social competencies (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2015).
Accessibility to Quality Care
Although the United States ranks top regarding spending on health care compared to other countries, it still faces a policy challenge when it comes to tackling socioeconomic and educational factors that are purported to have a negative impact on people’s access to quality health care. The poor health culture in the US can be clearly evidenced by the pitiable rankings on a number of health indicators such as infant mortality and life expectancy.
According to Robert Wood Foundation (2015), improving the health care system may not be the only answer to addressing the major problem. To improve health care and people’s ability to make better health choices requires a health culture policy that advocates for the improvement of where people work, live, learn, and play. According to Cherry and Jacob (2016), a healthy social, economic, and physical environment can lead to a better health outcome compared to an improvement of the quality of care in isolation.
Process Required in Changing the Policy: Key Players and Parties of Interest
To change the health policy requires the senate or house member to introduce the policy change in the form of a bill. The bill is then referred to a selected committee comprising stakeholders and experts who debate on the potential impact of the bill and decide on a vote for approval for legislation. Once the committee approves the bill, it is sent to the chamber floors (both the parliament and the senate) for a vote before becoming law.
If differences in the bill passed by the senate and the house are detected, a conference committee is selected to reconcile them. The reconciled bill is then passed to the president who then signs it into law within the first ten days. Once the president signs it into a new law, regulations are passed to the Federal agencies to implement or modify their existing programs as authorized by the legislative body. The agencies will then issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to transform, append, or cancel a regulatory text. Once revised, the law is given sixty days before taking effect (Aetna, 2016).
My Role in Leading the Effort on Policy Change
As a nursing practitioner, I have a role in drafting the bill through providing recommendations that are pertinent to improving policy implementation. According to Chilton (2015), a nursing practitioner is at the frontline when it comes to having knowledge about health care and the treatment of patients with multiple needs. Moreover, he or she can relate to personal experiences concerning how the implementation of the law will affect patients. Therefore, by using my expertise in clinical practice together with my educational background in advanced practice, I will be in a position to present a case for passing policy that influences health issues.
Possible Effects of policy Change on Healthcare
Price Transparency Policy
A robust price transparency policy that gathers information regarding the prices of health care among organizations and insurance companies will help in creating awareness among patients who complain about price differences among various health organizations, some of which are unaffordable to the lower end of the population. Moreover, price transparency will promote the reduction of health care cost by organizations since consumers can access cheaper health services at organizations of their choice. These trends will force organizations to reduce their prices with the hope of attracting more consumers. In the end, such a policy will go a long way in solving the issue of high government spending in health care (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2015).
Holistic Child Health Intervention Policy
A holistic approach to early child health intervention that encompasses social, emotional, and physical health of the child will lead to better academic, social, and behavioral childhood outcomes across families and schools. Kindergarten children who tend to display a high level of social competencies, for instance, cooperating or sharing, are much more likely to progress to higher education and secure well-paying jobs compared to children with weaker social competencies. This claim implies that a holistic child intervention policy will help to instill skills of students, hence improving the academic potential of young children (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2015).
Health Culture Policy
Implementing a health culture policy that focuses not only on the quality of health care but also on the environmental conditions of where people work, live, learn, and play will increase the attendance of high school graduates in colleges. The move will also reduce poverty levels among children, reduce the level of crime, reduce the number of admissions and stays in hospitals, and/or improve water and atmospheric quality. Overall, these factors will improve the life expectancy of the American population (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2015).
Reference List
AANP. (2016). AANP – Home. Web.
AANPCP. (2016). The American Academy of Nurse Practitioners Certification Program.
Aetna. (2016). Legislative Process Explained – Aetna Health Reform Connection.
Barr, A., Stainsby, K., Dryden, S., & Aston, J. (2015). General Practice Advanced Nurse Practitioner Competencies. Web.
Boyd, B. (2014). Multi Brief: 6 steps to patient leadership.
Cherry, B., & Jacob, S. (2016). Contemporary nursing: Issues, trends, & management. Maryland Heights, Missouri: Mosby Publishing.
Chilton, L. (2015). Nurse Practitioners Have an Essential Role in Health Policy. The Journal for Nurse Practitioners, 11(2), 1-19.
Darvish, A., Bahramnezhad, F., Keyhanian, S., & Navidhamidi, M. (2014). The role of nursing informatics on promoting quality of health care and the need for appropriate education. Global Journal of Health Science, 6(6), 11-18.
Jackson, B., Napier, D., Area, I., Newman, B., Area, I., & Ridgeway, S. (2008). Nursing Faculty Qualifications and Roles. Chicago, IL: National Council of State Boards of Nursing.
Lowe, G., Plummer, V., O’Brien, A., & Boyd, L. (2012). Time to clarify–the value of advanced practice nursing roles in health care. Journal of advanced nursing, 68(3), 677-685.
Monaghan, H. (2011). Clarifying the clinical nurse leader role: Guardian of care.
NCSBN. (2011). New Jersey Board of Nursing Laws. Web.
Nursing Licensure. (2013). New Jersey APN License Requirements | Become a Nurse Practitioner in NJ.
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. (2015). How Price Transparency Can Control the Cost of Health Care.
White, C., Ginsburg, P., Tu, H., Reschovsky, D., Smith, M., & Liao, K. (2014). Healthcare Price Transparency: Policy Approaches and Estimated Impacts on Spending. Washington, DC: Westhealth Policy Center.