Purpose
The purpose of this assignment is to provide the student with an opportunity to explore the nurse practitioner (NP) practice requirements in his/her state of practice, NP competencies and leadership skills to develop a plan to support professional development. APN Professional Development Plan Paper
Activity Learning Outcomes
Through this assignment, the student will demonstrate the ability to:
Examine roles and competencies of advanced practice nurses essential to performing as leaders and advocates of holistic, safe, and quality care. (CO1)
Analyze essential skills needed to lead within the context of complex systems. (CO3)
Explore the process of scholarship engagement to improve health and healthcare outcomes in various settings. (CO4)
The APN Professional Development Plan paper is worth 200 points and will be graded on the quality of the content, use of citations, use of Standard English grammar, sentence structure, and overall organization based on the required components as summarized in the directions and grading criteria/rubric.
Submit the paper as a Microsoft Word Document, which is the required format at Chamberlain University. You are encouraged to use the APA Academic Writer and Grammarly tools when creating your assignment.
Follow the directions below and the grading criteria located in the rubric closely. Any questions about this paper may be posted under the Q & A Forum or emailed to your faculty.
The length of the paper should be 5-8 pages, excluding title page and reference page(s).
Support ideas with a minimum of 3 scholarly resources. Scholarly resources do not include your textbook. You may need to use more than 3 scholarly resources to fully support your ideas.
You may use first person voice when discussing information specific to your personal practice or skills.
Current edition APA format is required with both a title page and reference page(s). Use the following as Level 1 headings to denote the sections of your paper (Level 1 headings use upper- and lower-case letters and are bold and centered):
APN Professional Development Plan (This is the paper introduction. In APA format, a restatement of the paper title, centered and bold serves as the heading of the introduction section)
APN Scope of Practice
Nurse Practitioner (NONPF) Core Competencies
Leadership Skills
Conclusion
Directions
Introduction: Provide an overview of what will be covered in the paper. Introduction should include general statements on scope of practice, competencies, and leadership, and identification of the purpose of the paper.
APN Scope of Practice: Research the Nurse Practice Act and APN scope of practice guidelines for the state in which you intend to practice after graduation. (Example: Students who intend to practice in California must research the California Nurse Practice Act and relevant Board of Registered Nursing regulations, such as obtaining a DEA number, and prescriptive requirements). Describe the educational, licensure, and regulatory requirements for that state in your own words. Identify whether your state allows full, limited, or restricted NP practice. Discuss NP prescriptive authority in your state. Provide support from at least one scholarly source. Source may be the regulatory body that governs nursing practice in your state. (Students who intend to practice in California, include the use of written standard procedures that guide nurse practitioner practice in the state and physician supervision ratios).
Nurse Practitioner (NONPF) Core Competencies: Review the NONPF Core Competencies. Describe two competency areas you believe to be personal strengths and two competency areas in which you have opportunities for growth. Discuss two scholarly activities you could do during the master’s program to help yourself achieve NP competencies. Provide support from at least one scholarly source. Source may be NONPF Core Competencies document provided via the link in the week 2 readings.
Leadership Skills: Analyze three leadership skills required to lead as an NP within complex systems. Describe two strategies you could use to help you develop NP leadership skills. Provide support from at least one scholarly source. Textbooks are not considered scholarly sources.
Conclusion: Provide a conclusion, including a brief summary of what you discussed in the paper.
APN Professional Development Plan Paper
Nursing is one of the vital healthcare profession that has continued experiencing dynamic changes in terms of practice, responsibilities, education and roles. The trend is as well expected to rise due to the increasing demand of healthcare services as a result of an increase in elderly patients and poor lifestyles that impact chronic diseases. The nature and increased complexity of healthcare reforms is also attributed by adoption of technology thereby impacting changes in leadership positions. The nursing scope of practice that varies from State to State is responsible for describing the role of nurses according to the State’s requirements. For instance, there are some states that fully authorize their nurses to practice while others require the nurses to practice only under the supervision of physicians. However, the decreasing number of physicians in all the states has recently made many States to adopt reforms that give full mandate for nurses to practice without supervision. Nurses spend most of their time directly with patients compared to any other healthcare professionals. Due to this reason, they understand most of the patients’ health needs hence suited to conduct the roles of leadership to increase safety and quality of healthcare. Nursing leadership is one of the core advanced practice that nurses get equipped with. Advanced practice Nurses are provided with education and training equipped with the core competencies of Nurse Practitioner (NONPF) to ensure that they gain knowledge concerning leadership roles. This essay aims at looking the California’s Nursing scope of practice, core competencies of nurse practitioner (NONPF) and the essential skills of leadership required in nursing practice. APN Professional Development Plan Paper
APN Scope of Practice
Despite nurse practitioners receiving the same level of training and education across all the States, their levels of practice are very different due to the existing laws concerning the regulation of nursing practice. The California’s Board of Nursing is mandated by the Nursing Practice Act (NPA) to set the scope of practice for registered nurses. The NPA is found in the California Business and Professions Code. California is among the few States that have not given their nurse practitioners (NP) the full independent authority. This implies that NPs in California practice roles such as diagnosing, medication prescription, ordering x-rays and lab tests only under the supervision of physicians (Chapman et al., 2019). To start practicing as a nurse practitioner in the state of California, a written agreement between the nurse practitioner and a physician is the first requirement. The board of nursing practice therefore requires NPs to adhere to the standardized procedures of the physicians that are formed as a result of collaboration between physicians, surgeons, NPs among other healthcare professionals. It is through these procedures that NPs practice their roles. The nurse practitioners in the State acquire certification from California’s board of registered nursing (BRN) to prescribe or order medications or devices, strictly under these procedures. One must however have acquired certification as a registered nurse before embarking on pursuing an APRN program. The physicians are therefore responsible for the work executed by these nurse practitioners.
However, during the onset period of the covid-19 in march 2020, Gavin Newsom, California’s governor signed into law the AB 890 order which gave the State’s Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) a temporary authority to loosen all restrictions regulating the scope of practice laws for NPs (Chapman et al., 2019). However, instead of suspending most of these restrictions, the DCA only gave a waiver that regulated a number of NPs that a single physician would supervise. Under the new AB 890, NPs in the state of California gain full permission of practicing independently after a Physician’s oversight period. APN Professional Development Plan Paper
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Nurse Practitioner (NONPF) Core Competencies
The core competencies of nurse practitioner (NONPF) refers to NP’s conducts and behaviors that are vital in competent, quality, efficient and safe for independent nursing practice that a nurse practitioner should possess after graduating from the medical school. The NP education programs are structured on the basis of these competencies. Some of these competencies include leadership, practice inquiry, health delivery system, scientific foundation, quality competencies, independent practice, technology and information literacy, and ethics (Thomas et al., 2017). Quality competencies and scientific foundation competencies are the areas that I believe are my stronghold. Scientific foundation encompasses high level knowledge in disease pharmacology, physiology and pathophysiology. Having the advanced skills and knowledge in this area helps in analysis of research findings and development of new clinical practices which are essential in improvement of nursing care and patient outcomes. Understanding the competence is also essential in translation of scientific theories into practice. Quality competencies on the other hand involves a high level of knowledge in areas of measuring, analyzing, as well as improving the organization’s culture concerning cost benefit, safety and analysis (Chan et al., 2020). The competence is also concerned with teamwork and leadership skills which are essential in change identification and leading change for the purpose of quality improvement. Through the competencies, I am able to utilize the best available evidence to continuously evaluate factors that affect the quality of clinical practices in an organization. These are factors such as financing, structure, marketing, culture and policy.
Policy competencies and the communication and technology literacy are the two competencies that I believe are my weakness. The ability to choose the appropriate technology and integrate it in a healthcare system to solve specific healthcare needs is referred to as technology and communication literacy. Based on this regard, I need more skills and knowledge to help me operate the various technologies of healthcare such as telehealth, electronic sources of evidence research findings and electronic data system. Policy competence on the other hand requires advanced knowledge in various global health issues affecting the quality of care and the strategies of advocating for these issues. According to Thomas et al (2017), policy competence encompasses sufficient knowledge of the existing relationship between practices of healthcare and policies, ethical policies and the factors influencing their development, and the processes of advocacy and policy making. I have a general limited score on these two competencies hence the need to improve on them. Due to this reason, my first plan is taking various scholarly activities with an aim of improving my competencies during my master’s program. I will first, collaborate with my community and local leaders to conduct a research on the existing factors that affect health in the society, then generate policy proposals from the findings. Conducting this activity will help to improve my knowledge in the process of policy development, knowledge in scientific research and the various factors affecting the healthcare system. I am also planning to undertake a medical related IT course which will help me interact with different medical technology areas. Through the IT course, I will also be able to develop academic research presentations on the uses of these health technology systems.
Nursing Leadership Skills
Nursing leadership is among the most preferred practices in APRN programs. It is a practice that involves one influencing the rest towards executing duties to help improve healthcare services through direct participation in the processes of healthcare delivery. The complexity of healthcare system which is increasingly caused by policy, technology, entry and exit of new talents and the factors of disease pathology makes nurse leaders to develop unique leadership qualities for them to be successful in their roles (Heinen et al., 2019). Nurse leaders should strive to have emotional intelligence which is the ability of an individual to control anger and emotions during decision making process and other conversations. A leader who is emotionally intelligent is usually understanding and helps other nurses to overcome the stresses that develop as a result of fatigue from career, domestic and academic duties.
Integrity is the other essential of nursing leadership. Integrity is the ability of a leader to be honest and moral principled when holding conversations with other nurses and the patients. Through integrity, nurse leaders are able to affectively solve problems existing among nurses as well as the ethical dilemmas that may arise involving patients and nurses (Lamb et al., 2018). Through integrity, nurse leaders also become role models to their subordinates thus encouraging safe and quality decision making in healthcare delivery. Integrity is also vital for effective communication of the nurse leaders. It is also through integrity portrayed by the nurse leaders that coordination of activities enhanced by collaboration with other healthcare providers that a highly disciplined healthcare organization is formed. There are various strategies that a nurse leader can use to advance their skills of nursing practice leadership skills. The first strategy is pursuing a leadership course. Undertaking a leadership course helps a nurse practitioner to keep updated on the advancements in technology and how to integrate the current research evidence into practice. Mentoring is the other strategy that they should use to improve on their leadership skills. Mentoring involves nurse leaders portraying admirable skills of leadership towards patients and other nurses through motivating and encouraging them. APN Professional Development Plan Paper
In a recap, the field of healthcare is wide incorporating multiple professions. Nursing is one of the essential professions that has played an important role in healthcare delivery. There has been an increased demand for healthcare services due to the increased complexities of healthcare reforms and advancement of healthcare technology. Due to this reason, the scope of nursing is increasing every day to help meet some of these demands. The areas that were previously reserved for physicians are also offered at nursing levels. To ensure that nurses are well equipped with these roles, nursing schools should ensure that the education they offer is based on the core competencies of nursing practice (NONPF). Basing their education on these competencies will help to produce quality and competent advanced practice nurses. Leadership in nursing is also an important consideration as it helps to improve the coordination of subordinates in a healthcare organization thus encouraging quality outcomes. Nurse leaders should always strive incorporate the skills and knowledge acquired in their advanced education towards improving quality of care.
References
Chan, T. E., Lockhart, J. S., Schreiber, J. B., & Kronk, R. (2020). Determining nurse practitioner
core competencies using a Delphi approach. Journal of the American Association of
Nurse Practitioners, 32(3), 200-217. https://doi: 10.1097/JXX.0000000000000384
Chapman, S. A., Toretsky, C., & Phoenix, B. J. (2019). Enhancing psychiatric mental health
nurse practitioner practice: impact of state scope of practice regulations. Journal of
Nursing Regulation, 10(1), 35-43. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2155-8256(19)30081-X
Heinen, M., van Oostveen, C., Peters, J., Vermeulen, H., & Huis, A. (2019). An integrative
review of leadership competencies and attributes in advanced nursing practice. Journal of
advanced nursing, 75(11), 2378-2392. https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.14092
Lamb, A., Martin‐Misener, R., Bryant‐Lukosius, D., & Latimer, M. (2018). Describing the
leadership capabilities of advanced practice nurses using a qualitative descriptive
study. Nursing Open, 5(3), 400-413.https://doi.org/10.1002/nop2.150
Thomas, A., Crabtree, M. K., Delaney, K., Dumas, M. A., Kleinpell, R., Marfell, J., & Wolf, A.
(2017). Nurse practitioner core competencies content. The National Organization of
Nurse Practitioner Faculties.
APN Professional Development Plan Paper