Advanced Practice Nurse(APN)

Advanced Practice Nurse(APN)

Having completed the basic nursing training program, one may feel the urge to advance and further pursue their career aspirations and passion. For this reason, the general nurse goes for further studies which entail specific areas of their interests; hence, the title advanced practice nurse, who is a vital stakeholder in the APN practice. Their comprehensive training programs on their specialty equip the APNs with a broad base of knowledge, competencies, and skills to act independently without the physician’s supervision in diagnosing and treating the conditions of their client. Regardless of their independence, APNs work in collaboration with other healthcare professionals to ensure holistic care is delivered to their clients. APNs can be grouped into four, which include nurse practitioners, clinical nurse specialists, registered nurse anesthetists, and certified nurse midwives. This categorization of the APNs is based on the type of specialization of the nurse (Boehning & Punsalan, 2023).

The Roles in Advanced Practice Nursing

Holistic care is one of the principles of nursing care that should always guide the nursing practice. To accomplish holistic care, APNs have to work in collaboration with other healthcare stakeholders to address the social, emotional, physical, and psychological needs of patients. This principle should be embedded in the APN practice regardless of their specialty. For instance, in the clinical setting, as APNs assess, diagnose, and manage their patients, they should do a thorough assessment of all their patients to note all the needs of their patients across all life aspects and address them holistically. It is a nurse’s function to practice patient advocacy and always link their patients to healthcare services. APNs, being advanced nurses, are not exempt from playing this functional role of a nurse. APNs have a responsibility to ensure the continuity of their profession. Due to this necessity, it is their role to take part in the education of other trainees who will be trained on the best practices of APNs. The other role of APNs is to conduct thorough research on the current trends in health and work to better their practices as well as keep themselves updated with the current trends. Lastly, APNs have advanced knowledge of their specialty, which places them in an ideal position to assume authority positions to oversee the operation of other nurses and participate in policy and guidelines formulation (Boehning & Punsalan, 2023). Conclusively, these roles of advanced nursing practice are vital in the healthcare sector. They ensure cost-effectiveness, address misuse or overuse of services, and reduce errors in healthcare provision.

How APN Practice Demonstrates Cost-Effectiveness

            Cost-effectiveness in the healthcare setting is a measure of economic efficiency used to outcomes different interventions that compare their cost their health outcomes. This aspect is used to determine how well resource utilization has been done to achieve a certain health outcome. The key components of cost-effectiveness include costs that might be direct or indirect. In this case, the direct costs may include medical expenses such as medications and procedures, while the indirect costs are the non-medical expenses such as transport. The other component of cost-effectiveness is effectiveness, which is, in these cases, the health outcomes that can be measured in various ways, such as specific health outcomes and life expectancy (Abraham et al., 2019).

The APN practice demonstrates cost-effectiveness through its functions. Its outcomes directly or indirectly affect the overall cost of healthcare services. For instance, the APN practice reduces the rate of admission and readmissions. This is a result of the role of APNs to manage chronic illness at the community level, hence minimizing the risk of developing complications that might necessitate hospital admission or readmission.  Secondly, APN nurses have a wide scope of practice, almost equal to the physicians’ role, since they diagnose and treat the patients independently without the physician’s supervision. Regardless of their great role in the healthcare provision, APN nurses are paid relatively less as compared to physicians. This way, the APN practice is perceived to reduce overall health costs through low salaries while ensuring a high standard of care. Lastly, the APN practice ensures cost-effectiveness through preventive and health promotion care. This prevents the mitigates the occurrence of a disease and its complications, which might require huge expenses in treatment, and also prevents the occurrence of disabilities that may cause reduced productivity and time used in the treatment process (Abraham et al., 2019).

How APN Practice Can Lead to Reduction of Errors

The APNs play significant roles in the reduction of medical errors. They do so through their comprehensive training, practicing evidence-based care, patient-centered care, and interdisciplinary collaboration. To begin, their comprehensive training programs equip advanced practice nurses with competencies to apply when managing their patients with zero room for errors. The competencies include educational competencies, clinical competencies, and ethical and professional competencies (Mutair et al., 2021). The application of these competencies in dispensing their services reduces medical errors significantly. Secondly, APNs practice patient care that is guided by the best available evidence from their advanced skills and extensive research on their areas of specialty. Thirdly, the APNs reduce medical errors through practicing patient-centered care where they closely monitor the patient through follow-ups hence being able to capture any changes that may be as result of the treatment process. Fourthly, the APN practice encourages interdisciplinary collaboration where APNs should work closely with other healthcare professionals to ensure comprehensive care with reduced risks of errors. Lastly, the APN practice emphasizes education. In most cases, the APN practice allows room for continuous self-education to gain knowledge on current health trends and guidelines. Also, the qualified APNs guide the junior practitioners on the best practices, hence reducing the medical errors (Mutair et al., 2021).

How APN Practice Affects Misuse or Overuse of Services

Misuse of healthcare services may be propagated by a couple of factors, which may emanate from collapsed ethical and professional principles by the healthcare providers who use the health services for their interests, inadequate knowledge to effectively use the services like diagnostic tests, poor management of chronic disease, and lack of patient education. The APN practice reduces the misuse of the services through various ways stemming from their functional skills. To begin with, appropriate utilization of resources where the APN practice emphasizes the use of clinical guidelines while performing procedures and indicating diagnostic tests. Secondly, the APNs provide comprehensive medical education to their patients, helping them know when to seek medical care. This reduces unnecessary utilization of services on patients who don’t deserve the medical services. Thirdly, the management of chronic disease at the community level by the APNs reduces the rate of hospitalization and mitigates the risk of complications, which may require intense utilization of health services. Lastly, the broad knowledge base of the APNs makes them occupy managerial positions in the healthcare setting. By so doing the oversight and guide the use of the services (Mira et al., 2018). All these functions reduce the overuse and misuse of services.

In conclusion, it is clearly evident that the APN practice demonstrates cost-effectiveness, reduces medical errors, and mitigates the overuse/misuse of healthcare services through the various functional roles of Advanced Nurse Practitioners due to their advanced training. This discussion also points out the impact of APN practice in improving the overall healthcare system.

References

Abraham, C. M., Norful, A. A., Stone, P. W., & Poghosyan, L. (2019, December 1). Cost-effectiveness of advanced practice nurses compared to physician-led care for chronic diseases: A systematic review. PubMed Central (PMC). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8491992/

Boehning, A. P., & Punsalan, L. D. (2023, March 1). Advanced practice nurse roles. PubMed; StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK589698/

Mira, J. J., Carrillo, I., Silvestre, C., Pérez-Pérez, P., Nebot, C., Olivera, G., De Dios, J. G., & Andrés, J. M. A. (2018). Drivers and strategies for avoiding overuse. A cross-sectional study to explore the experience of Spanish primary care providers handling uncertainty and patients’ requests. BMJ Open, 8(6), e021339. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2017-021339

Mutair, A. A., Alhumaid, S., Shamsan, A., Zaidi, A. R. Z., Mohaini, M. A., Mutairi, A. A., Rabaan, A. A., Awad, M., & Al-Omari, A. (2021). The effective strategies to avoid medication errors and improve reporting systems. Medicines, 8(9), 46. https://doi.org/10.3390/medicines8090046

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Instructions
APN Practice
Using the library, does a search and find at least three (3) research articles addressing the questions:
• Describe how APN practice demonstrates cost-effectiveness.
• Describe how APN practice can influence a reduction in errors.
• Describes how APN practice affects misuse or overuse of services.

Advanced Practice Nurse

•Support responses with examples and at least 3 peer-reviewed articles.
Submission Details:
• This will be a 2-4 page paper (excluding the title page and references).
• Literature support is required, and points are assigned.
• Peer-reviewed articles that are non-research and nursing organization websites may be used. All articles must be current (not more than five years old, unless it is a hallmark reference; e.g., Institute of Medicine (IOM) (2010). The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health. • Format your paper, citations, and references using correct APA Style.
• Submit your document to the Submissions Area by the due date assigned.