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APN Professional Development Plan

Introduction to APN

There has been significant change in the complexity of the modern healthcare environment and so has the role of nurses changed due to advanced technology. Every state has thus attempted to deal with these changes by expanding and advancing the duties of nurses. To achieve this, the teachers have been required to offer effective teaching to their students equipping them with perfect understanding of the roles of Advanced Practice Nurse (APN). Advanced Practice Nurse refers to nursing rules influencing healthcare output, including management, treatment administration, and direct medical care for distinct patients and development of healthcare rules (Anne, Glenn, Christine, & Mary, 2011).The nurses thence will be able to make sensible changeover into the healthcare market. Their educators should employ operative methodologies for constructing APN role content into course units to graduates for their goals as nurses. This paper will examine the scope of practice guidelines of the Nurse Practice Act and APN in Georgia State and  secondly, examine local and domestic professional establishments that publicize job opportunities for APN and identify networking and publicising approaches and provide a basis for the selections.

APN Scope of Practice

The fundamental proficiencies for the APN nursing roles arise from the requirements of the roles, regulations governing nursing, principles and practices of nursing and professional standards of behaviour necessary offering knowledgeable, ethical and safe care. These core proficiencies address two important elements: the professional advancement and the clinical exercise, Professional Advancement Competencies and Advanced Practitioner Scope of Practice, as discussed below.

1. Clinical Practice Aptitudes

Practice core aptitudes are very important APN roles. They include direct contact of the nurse practitioner with the patient and satisfies the role of a nursing specialist. This is because it enlightens and offers a basis for building the pillars for expert training (Spross & Hanson, 2013).  It also offers a basis for teamwork, investigation and ethical judgment making which is important for meeting the requirements of patients. A deep examination on the roles played by the APN leads to a deduction that nurses apply counseling, interactive skills and valuable communication talents to initiate therapeutic relationships with the patients (Spross & Hanson, 2013).  Additionally, they work in conjunction with other healthcare experts and use effective ethical criteria so as to satisfy the demands of their customers.

2. Professional Advancement Competencies.

The professional Advancement competencies are also important APN roles. This is because they help people to achieve and maintain a high level of competences needful for practice. They eye on the role of people in personal governance of their occupational practice and individual development. Professional advancement competencies considers the theoretical ideologies and customs within the area of specialization for graduate nurses (Spross & Hanson, 2013). The professional advancement competencies should give the graduates vivid understanding of the nursing profession, rules and regulations that are necessary for nurses and APN roles. Therefore, they play the role of organizing graduates professionally through the fine-tuning of measurable competency gauges, contributing to improving healthcare (Barginere, Franco & Wallace, 2013). Additionally, they contribute to an innovative understanding and practice improvement vital for sustaining technological progress in nursing rehearses. It is thus clear that APN works within the healthcare setting context which needs valuable understanding and skills past clinical nurturing ability. It can thus be seen that APN nurses play vital and effective roles in the modern healthcare environment, as they carry out assessment during a diagnosis process, use efficient intervention approaches, such as the collaborative model in care planning, thus leading to a higher satisfaction standard to the patients. APNs use cognitive, methodological skills of trained nurses, which are cumulatively put into moral and ethnically safe practices, performances and procedures thereby producing better patient outcomes (Joel, 2013).

3. Advanced Practitioner Scope of Practice

The scope of practice connotes the activities that a personal healthcare provider executes in the process of service delivery to a patient. This reveals the types of patient for whom a particular trained healthcare provider can attend to, what activities can be performed by the APN and the influences that may make the APN seek recompense for services provided (Barginere, Franco & Wallace, 2013).

The APN scope of practice are dynamic. This dynamicity depends on the level of experiences, the extent of knowledge acquisition, result-based practice, level of technological development and variations in health care distribution structure. This necessitates registered nurses to practice in new settings, carry out new protocols and acquire new expertise during their proficient careers (Pensacola, 2010).

Georgia may be considered as a very fast growing state, nevertheless, laws that pertain nurses are not supportive towards this fact. This is due to limited Nurse Practice freedom and the restrictive nurse practitioner scope of practice law (Spross & Hanson, 2013). Some of the elements of the nurse practitioner in Georgia comprises of:

1. Georgia’s Nurse Practitioner Supervision Laws

Under this law, any nurse practitioner in Georgia must work under the supervision of a physician. The NPs and their supervisors must co-work under a “nurse protocol”- which is the written document showing the approval of the physician (delegating physician) to the Nurse Practitioners (NPs) giving the mandate to perform medical acts (Pensacola, 2010). This protocol allows the nurse to consult the physician at any time in case there is need and that the delegating physicians should be available immediately for consultation all the time, failure of which may lead to a substitute being designated as part of the NP agreement. The delegating physicians are to bear the responsibility for carrying out a review of medical records for the treated patients by the patients quarterly(Anne, Glenn, Christine & Mary, 2011). When there are more physicians or nurses practitioners, a nurse decorum treaty must be outlined and assigned by one NP and one MD. Each and every nurse practitioner is required by law to have a protocol agreement. This law is thus very restrictive and may bar out very many from nurse practitioners.

2. Georgia’s Nurse Practitioner Prescribing Laws

Until 2006, Nurse Practitioners were not allowed the right to prescription of medication to patients. However, even after being given the right in Georgia, the ability of a nurse practitioner to do the prescription must be outlined in the nurse protocol decorum between the practitioner and the MD. Additionally, the NPs are not allowed to make prescription of Schedule II regulated substances, regardless of the outlined terms. The NPs are allowed to sign their own prescriptions in Georgia with no need of an MD co-signature (Holloway, Baker & Lumby, 2010). Other Practice scope laws used in Georgia include: Nurse Practitioners have the right to signing handicap parking authorizations though not allowed to authenticate death credentials. Additionally, though the living standards of the NPs has improved after the Georgia’s legislation that granted the NPs the mandate to prescribe laws, the state still lags behind in terms of nurse specialist independence (Barginere, Franco & Wallace, 2013). Reviewing these laws, the state of Georgia has the APN scope structured into full, restricted and reduced practices, as explained below.

Full Practice

The state practice and licensure regulation offers for all her nurse physicians to examine patients, establish, order, and give interpretation to diagnostic tests, begin and carry out to the end treatments, which include prescribing medications, under the high-class licensure specialist of the state panels of nursing.

Reduced Practice

The state practice and the licensure regulations decrease the capability of the practicing nurses to encourage specialization. By this, the state necessitates that controlled cooperative agreement be signed with external health discipline to improve the patient care.

Restricted Practice

In the Georgia state, the state and the licensure law restricts the capability of a practicing nurse to the engagement in at least one element of NP practice (Chang, Gardner, Duffield & Ramis, 2010). The Georgia state advocates that for proper and modern methods of attendance to the patients, supervision of nurses, delegation of duties to nurses that are undergoing training or team-work management of a treatment process are important.

From the foregoing facts, Georgia needs to work on the laws and policies that pertains to the nurse practitioners by restructuring them. This will better their effectiveness and learning.

Networking and Marketing Strategies

Professional marketing and networking are important for the continuity of learning and development of careers for nurse practitioners and advanced training nurses (Barginere, Franco & Wallace, 2013).. One of the ways by which one can keep connected is by joining a Georgia-based recognized professional organization, so that NPs within a given area can convene and show up for professional events and teachings jointly. Some of the recognized networking and marketing organizations include Society of Nurses in advanced Practice, NP central, NP Associate for Continuing Education, NP Healthcare Foundation, among many others.

In summary, the Georgia state uses different important aspects of the APN professional development plan. The Georgia’s Nurse Practitioner Supervision Laws offers a tight check on patients so that not any practitioner can decide to treat a patient. This reduces chances of quacks entering the market, which may result into greater loss of patients’ lives. Moreover, it guarantees enough training for the NPs since they get proper and enough coaching from their delegating physicians since the physicians are ever in check and approval of the acts of the NPs. However, the law makes some physicians to evade their responsibility for they are the ultimate bearers of the mistakes of the NPs. This reduces the willingness with which an expert in the field would discharge duties. Secondly, the Georgia’s Nurse Practitioner Prescribing Law serves the NPs well allowing them do certain prescription that helps boost their living standards. If these laws are adhered to just as they are stipulated, there won’t be much healthcare advancement as far as the NPs is concerned.