Over the past decades, the role of advanced nursing practice has been deeply integrated into the healthcare context worldwide. With an increased demand in an individual approach to the patients, nurses have become major intermediates between the doctors and subjects of their treatment. Although it is generally accepted that the main nursing practice is educating individuals on the matter of treatment, being educated is their prerogative now as well (Williams et al., 2016). Having started in the US and Canada, nurses from all over the world are now embracing the trend of being qualified medicines prescription.
With such advanced practice, advanced nursing practice has obtained a completely new perspective of autonomy and hence, a new level of responsibility. As a result, nurses have to deal with safe prescription patterns. Current medicine prescribing management requires meticulous examination of all the potential risks, including side effects, doses, and use of potentially inappropriate medications (Hirsch, Maharaj, & Bourgeois, 2018). In order to minimize the risk, patients should inform nurses about all the nuances that could potentially affect the quality of treatment. Thus, advanced nursing practice has a crucial role in terms of safe medicine prescription.
Speaking of potential barriers in terms of safe prescribing for advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs), the quality of patient treatment is directly correlated with the ways nurses communicate with doctors. One of the major barriers is, hence, poor communication with supervisors that are to educate nurses on the matter of proper patient examination. Another important issue is the absence of networking with peers in order to maintain competence in the field and enhance one’s outlook. Finally, the barrier on the way towards appropriate nursing practice is negative doctors’ attitude to the idea of medications prescription performed by nurses.
References
- Hirsch, C. H., Maharaj, S., & Bourgeois, J. A. (2018). Pharmacotherapy: safe prescribing and adverse drug events. In Geriatric Psychiatry (pp. 109-134). Springer, Cham.
- Williams, J. K., Katapodi, M. C., Starkweather, A., Badzek, L., Cashion, A. K., Coleman, B., Fu, M. R., Lyon, D., Weaver, M. T., & Hickey, K. T. (2016). Advanced nursing practice and research contributions to precision medicine. Nursing Outlook, 64(2), 117-123.