Introduction
The major purpose of this assignment is to compare and contrast the advanced roles of different kinds of nursing professionals. To be more precise, the roles of indirect and direct care providers need to be discussed via a detailed comparison. Since my advanced role is a Family Nurse Practitioner, I am going to compare the competencies for this role with the ones for a nurse administrator or executive.
Comparison and Contrast
First of all, looking through the list of core competencies for the family nurse practitioner, it is easy to notice that the areas included in this list cover a broad range of spheres in nursing. In particular, the competencies for a family NP include such aspects as practice inquiry, leadership, quality, scientific foundation, health delivery system, policy, technology and information literacy, ethics, and independent practice (“Population-focused nurse practitioner competencies,” 2013).
In contrast, the list of areas covered by the competencies of a nursing administrator is significantly shorter and includes such aspects as leadership, knowledge of healthcare environment, professionalism, communication and relationship management, and business skills and principles (AONE, 2015). At this basic level, it is possible to notice that the area of leadership is the only one that is present in the lists for both specialties. Also, the broad spectrum of competency areas required for the family nurse practitioners signifies that the range of activities and duties of this kind of professional has to be more diverse.
Implementation of Competencies
In addition to general competency areas, each of the aspects included is subdivided into multiple core competencies. Comparing these core competencies, one could notice that the ones listed for family nurse practitioners are more practice-oriented while those of a nurse administrator are process-oriented. In particular, family NP quality core competencies include: the use of evidence for the practice improvement, the evaluation of the relationships between the cost of care, its safety, quality, and access to care the way they impact public health, the application of peer review skills for the higher excellence, and the implementation of quality-focused interventions to improve care (“Population-focused nurse practitioner competencies,” 2013).
Reviewing these competencies and tasks, one can see that family nurse practitioners are involved in an ongoing practical adjustment of care for the purpose of the maximization of its quality. At the same time, the roles of a nurse administrator do not focus specifically on quality but perceived it as a part of the professionals’ roles such as the management of staff and department performance in order to ensure credibility, excellence, and quality-oriented culture.
Moreover, the areas of leadership are the ones that can be compared and contrasted for the two specialties for the purpose of identification of clear similarities and differences between their roles. In particular, the leadership core competencies of a nurse administrator include foundational thinking skills, the ability to learn from personal experience, systems thinking, succession planning, and change management (AONE, 2015).
At the same time, the core competencies for the leadership area required from a family nurse practitioner include communication and collaboration skills, the incorporation of innovations for the advancement of practice, advocating for the improvements in cost, assess, and quality of care, and the assumption of leadership roles for the purpose of guiding change (“Population-focused nurse practitioner competencies,” 2013).
The two lists of core competencies are very different even though they are dedicated to the same area. In particular, it can be seen that the leadership core competencies of a family nurse practitioner, as a direct care provider, are focused on the practical changes in introduced to the process of care on a regular basis. The leadership competencies of a nurse administrator are oriented at a bigger picture and include more planning and communication rather than actual implementation and putting planned tasks into practice.
In other words, a conclusion can be made that the professionals of the two specialties act at different levels and, as a result, the effects of their actions, as well as their focus differ in nature. While a family nurse practitioner works on specific ideas and issues they face on a daily basis during the practice, a nurse administrator is the one who should review the long-term conditions and changes that can or cannot happen, the factors that impact them and plan for the ways in which they could be implemented taking into account the potential positive and negative outcomes.
Conclusion
In that way, when it comes to the nature of implementation of the core competencies within the selected roles, one could point out that there are similarities as well as differences. To be more precise, the competencies of both roles are oriented at the improvement of quality, the monitoring of performance, the adoption of change and innovative approaches. However, the major difference is that the competencies within the family nurse practitioner are implemented on the level closes to direct nursing practice and aims at short-term effects and outcomes. At the same time, the competencies within the role of a nurse administrator aim at the bigger picture and focus on long-term change and effects planning for complex sequences of activities and actions.
References
AONE. (2015). Nurse executive competencies. Web.
Population-focused nurse practitioner competencies. (2013). Web.