Nursing has developed over the years; hence, it is crucial to support people who have chosen this field in professional development. One of the best ways to help is to incline more in advanced practice. It can be achieved through the provision of benefits and certification. Attestation is held every few years and allows workers to assess and confirm the competence of a licensed practitioner (Cary & Smolenski, 2018). The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services makes many efforts to provide benefits to emergency workers because of staff shortages. In addition, the authorities are trying to expand the roles of health workers to ensure well-coordinated teamwork.
Analysis of the literature has shown that licensed advanced nurses prefer to work in private clinics, schools, and other places with no urgent need. The primary place where the different roles of health care workers are needed is in emergency care. However, people choose a different path since there are problems with defining their role in a hospital setting. Additionally, there is a lack of explicit management coordination and accountability for advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) (Englebright et al., 2017). Institutions have the right to provide employees with functionality and privileges that they consider consistent with the competencies of medical personnel. For example, caring for a patient and performing diagnostic and therapeutic procedures within established frameworks. Nurses’ privileges are granted depending on their education, experience, qualifications, and other criteria.
Expanding the roles of APRNs in practice is closely related to the capabilities of specialists and quality patient care. The precise allocation and granting of resources for providing high-level medical care allows workers to respond quickly to systems’ and patients’ needs. Expanding the roles of nurses with advanced practice will lead to autonomy, which will allow doing some of the doctors’ functions with its subsequent approval. Based on it, nurses will be able to achieve leadership, and independent practice and have the opportunity to contribute their opinions to the common cause (Kleinpell et al., 2020). Further, the expansion and distribution of roles will allow the formation of interdisciplinary teams, which are especially necessary when caring for complex patients.
A real-life example is the well-coordinated work of ambulance personnel who can maintain communication and good relationships with all levels of staff. Advanced roles of APRNs can provide the highest level of help, working in a team of interdisciplinary colleagues. This approach helps to reduce the gap between the complexity of the work since each member of the group performs his function, regardless of its difficulty. Another example is the activities of APRNs during the COVID-19 period, which helped to reduce the spread of the epidemic. They led community testing centers, provided home health services, and operated telemedicine. Expansion of roles allowed to meet current clinical needs and to ensure the leadership of mid-level and low-level medical personnel.
Expanding the roles and functionality of APRNs has limitations that relate to security, the likelihood of isolated withdrawal, and increased costs. Safety is expressed in granting autonomy to nurses since they do not have complete medical competence. Isolated care is about being treated by a single doctor, not by a team. This option is feasible since nurses can independently prescribe treatment and develop care plans (Robeznieks, 2020). The increase in costs implies two categories: training and professional development and increased wages for more complex and responsible work. To test the functionality and effectiveness of the role expansion theory, it is necessary to integrate clinical indicators of the objective contribution of APRNs to a specific healthcare organization. It will allow experts to analyze the result of the changes and draw a conclusion about further development.
References
Cary, A. H., & Smolenski, M. C. (2020). Credentialing and clinical privileges for the advanced practice registered nurse. In L.A. Joel (Ed.), Advanced practice nursing: Essentials for role development (4th ed.). F.A. Davis Company.
Englebright, J., McCurley, J., & Borum, C. (2017). The emerging role of APRNs in hospital nursing practice: Perspectives from a survey of chief nursing officers. Nurse Leader, 15(6), 387–391. Web.
Kleinpell, R.M., Kapu, A.N., Stempek, S., Sicoutris, C., Broyhill, B.S., & D’Agostino, R. (2020). Developing and expanding APRN and PA teams. American Nurse. Web.
Robeznieks, A. (2020). Why expanding APRN scope of practice is a bad idea. AMA. Web.