NR 506 DISCUSSION QUESTIONS Week 1 – 8 3rd term 2024.pdf

1. Identify and describe practice barriers for APNs in your state and discuss these barriers on a state and national level. In today's society, Advanced Practice Nurses play an imperative role in healthcare. According to the American Nurses Association, APN's "provide primary, acute, and specialty health care across the lifespan through assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of illnesses and injuries in different healthcare settings." (ANA, n.d.). As of 2015, Maryland passed the nurse practitioner full practice authority law, expanding patient access to quality healthcare across the entire state, making it more accessible to its citizens. (NPAM, 2015). According to the Scope of Practice Policy, After the first 18- months of licensing and practicing under a full authority physician or nurse practitioner, Nurse Practitioners are allowed to practice independently by law. They are recognized to be primary care providers in the state of Maryland. (SOPP, 2020). This allows the nurse practitioner to diagnose illnesses, order further testing, prescribe, treat, refer, and advise patients regarding health issues. I consider myself fortunate to live in a state where APN's have full practice authority. There are many barriers from state to state that limit practice and action is needed at both the state and national levels. APN's can have either full authority practice, reduced practice or restricted practice depending on the state and their scope of practice laws. There are many states in the fight for full practice as many believe it should be granted nationwide. It is vital to achieve full practice authority nationwide in order to keep healthcare cost down, provide effective healthcare services services, and most importantly to help meet the growing demands for providers, especially those needs of rural communities. According to Peterson (2017), only 44% of states allow full authority practice to APNs and identifies restrictive scope-of-practice regulation of APNs as one of the most serious barriers to accessible care. (para 5). As the aging population and the need for provider’s increases, it is clear that APN can help fill in the gaps and are valued members of the healthcare team. Moreover, the fight for universal healthcare in the United States has been on the spotlight and more accessible healthcare continuous to be a right to all Americans. If in the near future healthcare becomes available for more individuals, the need for providers will only continue to increase. This will impact the nation as a whole and will impact access to care due to a lack of providers available. If NPs have full practice authority nationwide, the concern of lack of providers will be greatly relieved.